WHAT REALLY WENT WRONG
Looks can be deceiving. “From the outside, like, things are so perfect and things are so great,” Kristin Cavallari said of her marriage to Jay Cutler on an April 2019 episode of her reality show, Very Cavallari. “But actually, like, they’re not. And that sucks. That’s the thing, though, with marriage — it’s ups and downs.”
And now it’s over. On April 25, the Uncommon James lifestyle brand mogul, 33, and the former Chicago Bears quarterback, 37, announced that they’d split after nearly seven years of marriage and a decade as a couple. They insisted the breakup was amicable. Then their divorce filings were made public, proving it’s anything but. Kristin alleges Jay’s guilty of “inappropriate marital conduct,” which has led to cheating speculation. They’re also fighting over custody of their three kids, and in an April 29 followup court filing, she claimed
A DECADE AFTER FALLING IN LOVE, KRISTIN CAVALLARI AND JAY CUTLER END THEIR MARRIAGE WITH A BITTER DIVORCE BATTLE
Jay was attempting to “intimidate” her to get his way, while refusing to give up a cent of his $50M fortune. “There’s lots of dirt and drama we don’t know about yet, but it will eventually come out,” promises a source. “Still, Kristin is hell-bent on emerging unscathed. Jay’s friends say he knows she is going to try to spin everything to make him out to be the bad guy.”
PASSING THE BLAME?
In their statement, she and Jay said their split was due to “two people growing apart.” Kristin hinted at as much, and more, last September when she confessed to Life & Style that things went downhill after Jay retired from the NFL in 2017. “We entered this new normal [where we were] navigating the roles [of work and parenting] really reversed and… we went through a pretty low low,” she admitted, insisting they’d since rebounded and that “things
are great right now.”
But just two months later, things got “so bad” that she was looking at houses for herself and the kids, Camden, 7, Jaxon, 5, and Saylor, 4, she revealed in court papers. She found one and Jay “never objected” to the purchase, she says, though she dropped it when they decided to try to salvage their marriage. However, it wasn’t long until they “realized the attempt to reconcile was not working and knew a divorce was inevitable,” Kristin said. She restarted her home search in March and now claims Jay instructed his business manager “to not release the funds” she needs, which Kristin believes he did as a means of “punishing” her. Her lawyer calls it “typical” of Jay’s
behavior toward his client.
That’s not all. Jay “attempted to intimidate” Kristin, she alleges, to get her to agree to a parenting plan “unfavorable” to her. (She wants full custody; he wants joint custody.) The reality star says he’s refusing to leave their current marital home, “makes inappropriate statements to and about” her to the children and “attempts to draw her into an argument in front of” them. Kristin fears “the situation will escalate” and is urging the judge to grant her “her portion of their funds” to buy a new place.
HIS SIDE OF THE STORY
Accusations lobbed at Kristin, however, paint her as the wife from hell. “She was always traveling for work, leaving Jay home playing Mr. Mom,” says the insider. “They were living totally separate lives. It was clear she was making her career the priority. It led to a lot of fights and tension. Jay felt abandoned and alone a lot. With all her time away, it’s like she practically dared him to cheat.”
Yet when she was home, adds the insider, “their relationship was stressed and tense. They were miserable.” Jay felt Kristin “was constantly complaining and the smallest things would set her off,” adds the insider. “There was a lot of anger and arguing.”
Former Uncommon James staffers have turned on Kristin, too. Shannon Ford, whom Kristin unceremoniously fired after Season 1 of Very Cavallari, thinks “Kristin’s a monster,” says a source close to the former employee, while co-star Reagan Agee — who herself only made it through Season 2 of the E! series before getting the boot — told fans on Instagram, “don’t care,” when asked about the divorce news. “To make her relationship with Jay work, Kristin put her career on the back burner. But once she began working again, she fell into a lot of her old habits,” notes the insider. “She became obsessed with her image, publicity, all the things Jay despised. It’s all about Kristin being the star.”
When the Laguna Beach pot stirrer joined The Hills in 2009? The MTV series adopted the slogan, “The B---- Is Back.” Denying rumors of a cocaine problem, but admitting to heavy drinking and marijuana use, she says, “My life back
then was a little wild.” And it created jealousy issues — while she was a regular on the LA party scene, Jay was based in Chicago and traveling around the country for football — that ultimately crept into their marriage. “Their foundation was insecure. He never really trusted her,” notes the insider. “Over the years, they’d each continually accuse the other of cheating.”
AN UNHAPPY ENDING
Despite a decade of drama, Kristin didn’t want things to end like this. “She thought they were going to be this mega couple, a football superstar and his mogul wife. But they just couldn’t see eye to eye,” says the insider. Now, explains the source, they’re at war: “Kristin and Jay’s divorce is only going to get uglier.”