Eddie Murphy's Two-Week Marriage is Over

The failure of Eddie Murphy's two week marriage to Tracey Edmonds has sparked a lot of interest in the rates at which celebrities marry and divorce, and many people are questioning why celebrities seem to change their spouses as often as they change their underpants.

Mr. Murphy and Ms. Edmonds have refrained from citing specific reasons why they will forgo legalizing their Bora Bora marriage. The most that they have said was in their exclusive statement to PEOPLE magazine:

"After much consideration and discussion, we have jointly decided that we will forego having a legal ceremony as it is not necessary to define our relationship further. While the recent symbolic union in Bora Bora was representative of our deep love, friendship and respect that we have for one another on a spiritual level, we have decided to remain friends."

One can only speculate as to why they have decided to let this marriage go, but at least one friend who was present at their wedding has stated that their troubles began during their honeymoon, with Murphy yelling at his bride in public on several occasions.

Murphy and Edmonds dated for about six months before becoming engaged in July of 2007, then married at the beginning of January, 2008.

There have been numerous celebrity marriages and divorces of notoriety. Perhaps the most famous at this point in time is that of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline, but before we get to that one, we should take a look at Ms. Spears' 55 hour first marriage.

On January 3, 2004, Britney Spears eloped to Las Vegas with her lifelong friend Jason Alexander. Fifty five hours later, the marriage was ended by civil anullment. According to the paperwork, the anullment was requested on the grounds that "[Ms. Spears] lacked understanding of her actions to the extent that she was incapable of agreeing to marriage because before entering into the marriage the Plaintiff and Defendant did not know each others' likes and dislikes, each others' desires to have or not have children, and each other's desires as to State of residency."

Just a few months later, Britney met Kevin Federline, and three months after meeting, their engagement was announced. Two months later the couple were married, and almost exactly a year later their first son was born, followed very quickly by their second child. A month after the birth of their second child, Ms. Spears filed for divorce, using that age old saw of "irreconcilable differences". And then, as we all know, all hell broke loose regarding spousal support and custody, with Ms. Spears demonstrating over and over again her lack of contact with reality and reason. The couple has been officially divorced for over six months, and the flak is still falling, with the children of this marriage caught very much in the middle of the very ugly divorce of their two unstable parents.

Other than Murphy and Edmonds' two week idyll, other infamously short marriages and divorces in Celebrity Land include:

Drew Barrymore's two marriages, one of which resulted in separation less than a day after the marriage, and the other of which lasted five months.

Rapper Eminem's two marriages to Kimberly Mathers. The first lasted two years, the second less than four months. The couple have one daughter from their first marriage.

Liza Minelli's marriage to David Gest in March of 2002 was a lavishly expensive, huge spectacular with a star studded guest list. The couple were quoted all over the newspapers and gossip rags swearing their undying devotion to each other. Apparently the fun part was the wedding planning, as the couple soon devolved into bitter fighting that was reported broadly. They divorced just over a year after their marriage. This was Minelli's fourth marriage. Of her prior three, only one lasted more than five years.

Living in the celebrity spotlight is well known to not be the easiest life. Undoubtedly, having one's marriage in the fisheye lens continually can cause strains and stresses. But why do so many these people marry so quickly and divorce so quickly? Particularly when you consider that more than a few celebrity marriages have proven to be "'til death do us part". Some of these marriages include heavy metal rocker Alice Cooper and his wife Sheryl, who have been married since 1976. Ozzie and Sharon Osbourne have been married for more than 20 years. Jimmy Stewart and his wife were married in 1949 and was truly until "death do us part", ending only with Mrs. Stewart's death in 1994.

Bob Hope stands out for having had both a very short lived and a very long lasting marriage. His first marriage, in 1933, ended in divorce within a year. His second marriage, to his wife Dolores, began in 1934 and ended with Hope's death in 2003, a whopping 69 years.

We can speculate for weeks as to why some celebrity marriages are so suddenly entered into and run away from. Perhaps the alarmingly high celebrity divorce rate is because of the cameras, the publicity, the lack of respect for these peoples personal privacy. Perhaps it is because many of them have never really had to cope with real life, and instead see everything from an immature viewpoint, and, expecting marriage to fill a gaping emotional void in their lives, they reach out and grab the first person who sparks their interest. Maybe some of these marriages happen and then fail simply because people made a mistake, and if they weren't celebrities the world wouldn't even notice - there are numerous examples of short lived and/or disastrous marriages amongst the "ordinary people" as well as in the world of superstardom.

There is really no way for any of us to understand what the reasons for these divorces and these marriages are. All that we can do is sit on our sofas, watching the reality programming that show us the "secret lives" of some of these couples and watching as they fall apart at the seams. These are not our marriages, and any speculation as to what is going on in these peoples private lives is just that - speculation.

Maybe, just maybe, some of these marriages would have a better chance of making it if the rest of the world weren't so busy trying to poke its nose in where it doesn't belong.

Sources:

People Magazine Staff "Eddie Murphy, Tracey Edmonds Suddenly Split" People.Com
Wikipedia entry on Britney Spears
Sheri and Bob Stritoff "Britney Spears and Kevin Federline Marriage Profile" About.Com
"Celebrity Divorce Stats" Hollywood Heartbreaker
TMZ Staff "More Celebrity Divorces: Eminem, Paul McCartney" TMZ.Com
Wikipedia entry on Ozzie Osbourne
Wikipedia entry on Alice Cooper
Wikipedia entry on Bob Hope
Wikipedia entry on Jimmy Stewart