Love is a lie.
At least, that’s how it feels this week following the news that Gen Z “it” couple, Molly-Mae Hague and Tommy Fury, have split following five years of highly Instagrammable bliss.
The former Love Island stars, who came second in the ITV2 reality TV show in 2019, were quite literally a picture-perfect couple, complete with a bespoke countryside mansion, lucrative business deals, and a one-year-old daughter, adorably named Bambi.
News of the split, which the couple announced on Instagram, has been made even more galling in light of countless allegations of infidelity that have since surfaced. All of these have been directed at Fury, by the way, who has vehemently denied reports that he cheated on Hague “multiple” times. Still, that hasn’t done much to stop the internet rallying around Hague, who has become an unlikely symbol for every woman who has ever been cheated on with every confused and angry post on Twitter/X.
“Why the actual f*** would you cheat on MOLLY MAE?? MOLLY MAE?!!?!!?! is he insane [sic],” wrote one user. “How has Tummy Fury fumbled Molly Mae?!!!!!” another added. “Men are crazy and forever taking good women for granted for a bit of pleasure!”
It’s safe to say that, regardless of Fury’s denial, the internet is united in its outrage. How could a woman as successful as Hague be cheated on? If someone like Hague can be cheated on, surely all of us can? What hope is there for the rest of us? And so on.
What we’re witnessing here is part of a pattern – a routine that happens online whenever a beautiful, famous woman breaks up with someone, and the rumour says it’s because she was cheated on. We’ve seen it with Hague. We’ve seen it with Emily Ratajkowski. And we’ve seen it, of course, with Jennifer Aniston.
But there’s a big problem with this pattern because it points to a completely warped understanding of infidelity – one that makes it all about the person being cheated on and not the cheater.
As someone who has both cheated and been cheated on, I have skin in the game on both sides here. Anyone who has been in a similar position to me – or read The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity by Esther Perel (highly recommend) – will know that when someone cheats, it generally has little to do with the partner you’re cheating on. Hell, it might not even have anything to do with your relationship.
It’s almost always a reflection on the cheater. Maybe they have a history of family trauma that causes them to self-destruct. Perhaps they are feeling lost in some way, and have found themselves seeking cheap thrills for the sake of validation. They might also just be a bit of a d***. None of this is to excuse cheating; an explanation for bad behaviour doesn’t vindicate it.
But I do think all of us could do with having a bit of a more nuanced understanding when it comes to what actually drives someone to cheat. Mostly because, when it happens to you, the default response is to blame yourself. What wasn’t I doing in the relationship to stop them from straying? How did I let things get this bad between us? Why wasn’t I enough?
It’s a downward spiral from there, one that will wrongly lead us to blame ourselves for something that never had anything to do with us. Because the sad truth is that, yes, women in the public eye are just as capable of getting cheated on as the rest of us. But it shouldn’t ever be a reflection on them.
And while we don’t know what happened between Fury and Hague, we do know that if someone did cheat, they are the one whose behaviour is worth interrogating. Not the other way around.