Earlier this month, Joe Jonas managed to miraculously unite the Internet over an alleged smear campaign against former wife, Sophie Turner, amidst their divorce battle. Early reports surrounding their split had “sources” — likely from Jonas’ camp — painted the musician as a devoted stay-at-home dad, who “had to take what he felt was the best course of action for his girls,” as opposed to Turner, who supposedly “likes to party,” as if mothers can’t raise happy kids and also enjoy partying.
Unsurprisingly, this PR attempt didn’t go over well, coming off as a desperate attempt to make a villain out of the woman Jonas shares two children with. Without saying a word against Jonas, this spectacular backfiring helped elevate Sophie Turner’s status as a fun girl enjoying her youth while successfully raising a family, winning over even more fans than she did through her work on Game of Thrones.
Now, Turner is filing a lawsuit against her former husband to bring her kids back to her home country of England. According to the legal documents, Turner’s legal team demanded “the immediate return of children wrongfully removed or wrongfully retained,” by Jonas, who was given custody of the children under a “temporary arrangement”, due to Turner’s filming commitments. Jonas is now said to have broken the agreement, where initial plans for the children to reside in England were suddenly changed, keeping them in the U.S. without Turner’s consent.
“The Father has possession of the children’s passports. He refuses to return the passports to the Mother and refuses to send the children home to England with the Mother,” the documents read.
The documents also allege that their split happened “very suddenly,” following an argument between the couple on August 15th, with Jonas filing for divorce two weeks later. The legal petition went on to state that Turner learned that the actress only learned of the split “through the media,” and she was never told of any formal separation, let alone proceeding to divorce, leaving Turner blindsided by the abrupt change to their family.
The claims made in these documents are highly serious, even going as far as citing child abduction laws, making Jonas’ actions a criminal offense. Jonas’ alleged attempt to control the narrative surrounding the breakdown of his marriage is being rightfully met with skepticism by the public. If the assertions made by Turner in the new legal documents are true, this confirms the suspicions surrounding Jonas using the media to boost his public image, possibly to the extent of breaking the law.
