Jordana Brewster has a new first person essay for Glamour Magazine in which she describes the breakdown of her marriage to Andrew Form. They separated last summer after being married for 13 years. Jordana and Andrew have two sons together: Julian, 7, and Rowan, 5. Jordana is getting a lot of headlines for being open and honest about her eating disorders. People Magazine has more on that, she both binged and restricted during a time when she knew her marriage wasn’t working and she and her husband were disconnected. I wanted to focus on how she described her new relationship with Mason Morfit, whom she calls the love of her life. Particularly how she explains the way they almost immediately got serious. Here’s a segment from the essay where she talks about that.
So, toward the beginning of the pandemic, Andrew and I decided to separate. The combination of being apart for most of the year for many years and growing apart emotionally took its toll.
Mason and I had met once, while we were both still married, four years ago. At a lunch with mutual friends, he sat next to my then husband, and they talked about Hollywood. I’m always shy in new social situations, so I excused myself and wandered around Park City. But I took note of Mason; he was cute, charming. Shortly after that lunch I started following him on Instagram. I enjoyed his sweet, self-deprecating humor. His intelligence made him all the more attractive. He started following me as well. My heart would leap as soon as he liked a post or commented on something I’d written. We had similar backgrounds: We’d grown up abroad, ping-ponging from England to Brazil (me) and Indonesia (him).
Four days after I separated from Andrew, I was on a plane to San Francisco to visit this man I had met only once but who had stayed on my mind. I knew he’d been separated for two years. I wanted to see him, to confirm whether the image I’d built up in my mind matched reality. What I got was far more than I expected.
When I landed, Mason was at the bottom of the escalator, holding a sign with my name on it. My heart was fluttering like a hummingbird. I felt at once super panicked but also strangely grounded. I couldn’t help but move toward him. He took me into his arms and we embraced. For five minutes. In our masks. Everyone at the arrival terminal walked around us. During a time when the world avoided all contact, when it was mandated that everyone stay six feet apart, Mason and I blended into each other. I thought, Please kiss me. And he did.
From that day on Mason and I saw each other every other week. We began thinking about how to blend our families. Therapists and friends urged us to slow down, to enjoy the time alone, but we knew this was right. I guess what didn’t work for me last time was working for me now.
Friends asked me about my kids and the toll it would take on them. They saw my decision as sudden, impulsive. The problem was that they didn’t know it was 13 years in the making. What seemed like a huge event was in fact a slow unraveling. They just didn’t look close enough. That, or I’m a good actress.
In my 20s and most of my 30s, I second-guessed every move or decision I made. In my 40s, I know what I value and am proud of decisions I can make on my own. My newfound security helps my kids in the long run. I know that in my heart. I also feel like I finally have a partner.
While she takes pains to say the breakdown of her marriage wasn’t her ex husband’s fault, she also sounds like she’s shading him by saying she finally has a partner. The timeline doesn’t add up for me. Jordana met Mason once when they were both married to other people, she added him on Instagram and they liked and commented on each other’s posts for a few years. Then she flew to meet him four days after she was separated? They must have been flirting pretty hard over Instagram. Some people consider it cheating when you’re not working things out with your partner and spend a lot of emotional energy on someone else. I’m not saying that’s what happened, just that this story doesn’t make sense unless she’s been communicating with him for years.
A lot of people say “when you know you know” and it happens this way for some couples. It sounds like Jordana’s friends were just looking out for her by telling her to take her time.
Jordana and Mason got out to paparazzi hotspot Craig’s quite a bit. Photos credit: Backgrid
It sounds like she checked out of her marriage a while ago. She’s so low key I don’t really know much about her. Meh.
Let’s remember this was going on at the height of the pandemic. Seems like she was such a low point she was willing to risk her life for some semblance of happiness. I wouldn’t do it, there’s face time and zoom to meet up during a pandemic.
On one hand, I agree with ‘when you know, you know.’ My partner and I instantly bonded when we met, and have never looked back. On the other hand… we were both single when we met, and I never stalked him for years on IG.
I’m sorry but it will take a toll on her kids. I have been the kid in this situation. As a kid you have no clue about marriage or partnerships, you might not have mature insight into your parents’ inner life and that they have been checked out from each other for a long time. The divorce could be a complete shock and you the kid need time to adjust to the new normal, and the parents to spend one on one time with you in your new separate lives with them so that you feel secure. You need them to understand you are in shock and focus on you, the absolute worst thing is you the kids are reeling from their divorce and your parent is almost immediately deliriously in love with their new person and have moved on and expect you to also be happy about it and snap to it.
Agreed. Add in the pandemic fear and general weirdness and it’s even more bewildering for the kids. Her piece read like one long rationalization for rebounding pretty much instantly, which even in the best of times should raise red flags, as her friends rightfully did.
I agree, sounded like rationalization.
It sucks she was so miserable in her entire marriage, and certainly everyone deserves to be happy, but when you have 2 little kids, AND there’s a pandemic, you have to be a little more cautious and considerate of them.
Exactly right. Her therapist and friends were trying to tell her, but when you can think of no one but yourself, the price will be paid by the children. And she’s putting this whole business in People magazine. You just know their schoolmates are going to get wind of this.
I agree with you, though I think these comments are unfortunately only directed at women. When men do it, their ex partner is just “bitter”. In Jordana’s defense, it does sound like her family was physically apart from each other the majority of the time anyway.
I get what she’s saying. My marriage was awful for years and even when I finally accepted there was no hope, it still took me a year and a half to finally leave. I was so miserable and so lonely during those last years that I would have clung to any potential dream or thought of a better future. So I get following someone you clicked with and then jumping into a possible relationship the second the marriage was over. What I worry about is whether this next relationship will last. It’s too easy to jump into another relationship where you repeat the same bad patterns and end up in the same bad place. And yea, the kid angle is not great.
I hope her children are okay. I haven’t liked her since I saw that she was one of the actresses egging Gary Janetti on during his attack on Duchess Meghan.
She was? Thanks for letting me know.
Well, I’m sure it was far more than just following immediately and commenting on each others’ posts here and there. Why not go full disclosure since she’s being so honest? You know, all of the private DM’ing that went on and probably other forms of communication, and most definitely phone calls in the later stages before the big meet-up. There was some type of emotional relationship that had been going on leading up to all of this to where she didn’t feel like it was jumping in too fast, but would seem shocking to everyone else.
RIght?! I feel like she left out a lot of details. Not that she owes those to us, but why else is she writing this article? 40 yr old mom’s don’t just hop on a plane after exchanging a few DM’s.
Wow. I feel bad for her kids & her ex-husband. It would be nice if he could tell his side of the story.
She looks so healthy now. 🙂
Since Fast 5, I’ve been distracted by her slenderness because the camera adds weight to people, and she always looks so slim in an unhealthy way on film. She now looks like my slender (sizes 00 to 6) friends who are at their natural weight. I’m not privy to her life, but if she has her disordered eating under control, I’ll take her at her word that she’s in a happy place.
I remembe seeing her in a TV show around that time, and was kind of shocked how thin she was. Glad she’s healthier now.
Her kids will be traumatized by this no doubt. It’s hard for her to see it because she’s so blinded by love right now, but she acted selfishly. Her children lost their entire family and she’s off making out with new people within days..in a pandemic?! Sorry but no, she’s rationalizing it for them but this was shitty on her part. I mean I know what it’s like to hit 40 and feel so confident and strong but don’t do this to your kids:(
I wonder why she’d open herself up to this kind of scrutiny by sharing information in an essay. Maybe it was innocent, maybe it wasn’t, but the essay certainly invites speculation she might not want. She’s not that famous like Brad Pitt where she has to justify to the public, so I don’t get it.
This seems really dumb and unnecessary to put this out there.
right? a public essay? girl no. have some respect for your family.
Blabbing about it publicly to a magazine just adds another layer of drama to it. Clearly not thinking of the best interest of the kids.
I went back and read the whole essay because it didn’t add up and yep it still didn’t. If I were her husband and kids I would feel so betrayed. She had a four year emotional affair and the minute (well, okay four days) after she physically separates from her husband she makes it physical. Then she writes about it. Yuck.
Sums up my feelings too, Lena. Yuck. Also, seems very bizarre to write an essay to tell your story, and then not exactly tell your story. A lot of glossing over happened there.
She sounds like she has been suffering for some time. I have to admit, I am skeptical. Why was she traveling to him in the middle of pandemic, and immediately staying with him? Why did he separate? It sounds like their kids were also forced into their relationship early on, which seems suspect.
I feel like the lesson here is that marriages can fall apart, you have to be able to care for yourself first mentally and physically, and then be able to be there for your kids no matter what. Is it as fun as a new boyfriend? No.
is it responsible and centering your family? Yes.
I don’t know, not sure why she inviting commentary on her life but as the kids say, you do you.
Is this like the kind of roll-out D-list actors do? I probably wouldn’t have realized she had a new partner.
I’m just curious about her excusing herself during lunch to go walk around Park city.
My nephews needed therapy years 4-7 after their parents divorce. Yeah 4-7 years later, the effects of the divorce hit them starting 4 years later!!! Jordana is being very dismissive of what the breakdown of a foundation does to children
I met my husband when he was living with his girlfriend of 6 years. Three months later we were engaged and we have been married for 26 years. Sometimes you just know. Neither of us had kids, though, it was easy to be selfish and just think of ourselves.
I don’t understand writing about this.
She says this decision was 13 years in the making. Was the marriage bad from the beginning? Why do I even care?
This is very strange. Maybe something is coming from the divorce and she is preparing us by giving her side of the stotry.
He left a 17 yr marriage and 4 kids also!