After Jen Hatmaker’s Divorce Announcement, Some Pray — Others Pry

A few weeks after making a cryptic Instagram post saying her family was “deeply hurting,” Christian speaker Jen Hatmaker has now announced that she and her husband Brandon are getting divorced. There has been an outpouring of support from fans of Jen and Brandon in the wake of the news. Naturally, there has also been plenty of speculation regarding the reasons behind their decision to dissolve their marriage.

As often happens when public figures announce shocking personal news, people have started weighing in with their own hypotheses about what is really going on between Jen and Brandon. Some people are even wondering: Did Brandon Hatmaker cheat? 

Most of Jen Hatmaker’s fans first became aware that something was up with the popular Christian speaker/blogger/TV host back in July. On Instagram, where she has more than 500,000 followers, Jen shared a post saying that her family was “navigating an unexpected crisis.” She clarified that everyone in the family was safe and asked for her followers to give her and her family some privacy.

“A request: don’t pry or ask or push, even out of sincere concern,” she wrote. “Please don’t blow up our phones and inboxes and DMs (or our friends’). Just hold us close to your heart in great love.” Jen maintained a social media presence after making this post, often hinting at the behind-the-scenes struggles in her post captions. However, it wasn’t until Sep. 7 that Jen announced exactly what the “unexpected crisis” has been.

Jen (whose maiden name is King) made another Instagram post saying, “We are in a moment with no handbook and without a single clue how to navigate this privately, much less publicly. I don’t know how to hide grief, so I haven't, and I am grateful for your absolute decency these last few weeks. I don’t know how to say this, and I still cannot believe I am even saying it, but Brandon and I are getting divorced.”

When it comes to public figures — and especially when it comes to the private lives of those public figures — people often want to feel “in the know” when it comes the salacious details of their lives (even if the details are, in fact, not salacious at all). On Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, people have already started to share their own theories about what could have led to Jen to file for divorce. Namely, there are those who have theorized that Brandon had an extra-marital affair.

However, Jen did not in any way confirm these rumors in her Instagram post. “Although the details are ours alone, this was completely unexpected, and I remain stunned as we speak. I am shocked, grief-stricken, and broken-hearted.” Jen also went on to ask — again — for privacy as she and her family navigate this difficult situation. “Our loss is not for public devouring,” she wrote. “We are real people managing this in our real life in real time, and we are doing the absolute best we know how to do.”

Given Jen’s role as a public figure, there is certainly a chance that she may, at some point, share some additional details behind her and Brandon’s decision to get divorced. However, feeding into any baseless and unfounded theories when we simply don’t have the information is both fruitless and — if we’re being honest — pretty darn rude.