In 2017, singer Fergie and actor Josh Duhamel announced that they were separating after
eight years of marriage and nearly 13 years as a couple. But there was no knock-down,
drag-out custody battle. Instead, they amicably hashed it out, privately. So what went wrong?
Here's the scoop on why Josh and Fergie split.
Duhamel reportedly first laid eyes on Fergie when a friend convinced him to watch the Black
Eyed Peas music video for "Hey Mama."
"From that point on, I had a crush on her.”
It might not have been love at first sight, but it was certainly instant lust. It seems
Duhamel was so taken by Fergie's boom boom pow that she made her way into his fantasies.
In 2004, the actor told InStyle,
"My recurring dream involves the lead singer of The Black Eyed Peas. Oh, my God, I've got
the biggest crush on her! God, she is hot!"
Little did he know that Fergie happened to see that very issue. She later told Playboy,
"I had read in a magazine that he had a naughty dream about me. All my friends knew about
him because he had been a soap-opera star. I'm not into soap operas, but they told me,
'You gotta go out with him.'"
Duhamel got his big break in 2003 on NBC's Las Vegas. And it was on that set that he
finally got to meet Fergie face-to-face. In an interview with Parade, Duhamel joked about
stalking his wife in the beginning of their relationship. He was promoting his starring
role in When in Rome, in which a spell put on Kristen Bell's character causes her to
be stalked by three different guys. Duhamel quipped,
"I could relate. That's how I got my wife. I literally stalked her for weeks until she
said yes. They say it's not stalking if she says yes."
"That's when I had my big opportunity."
Duhamel also admitted to convincing Las Vegas producers that the relatively then-unknown
Black Eyed Peas should appear on the show. Sure enough, the band made a cameo in Season
2, giving Duhamel the chance to finally make a not-so-smooth-move on the girl of his dreams.
Some couples have memorable conversations that ignite the spark. But not these two.
The actor described their first conversation in an interview with Best Life, saying,
"After [The Black Eyed Peas] finished rehearsing, I was walking out, and all of a sudden she
was walking toward me. I was like, 'Oh boy.'"
"All I could say was 'You're hot.'"
To that, he said Fergie replied,
"Yeah, I read InStyle. So…how was I in your dream?"
Duhamel went on to tell E! News,
"She had already known that I had a little bit of a crush on her while she was there
and it was sort of a way of saying something she already knew."
The couple tied the knot in 2009.
Combining careers in the film and music industry is certain to spawn a grueling work schedule
that could test even the strongest relationships. Fergie once revealed the couple's two-week
rule to protect their marriage, ensuring that they never spent more than two weeks apart.
For years, that seems to have worked. While filming Lost in the Sun in Texas, Duhamel
told E! News their strategy was a success. He said,
"[Fergie's] here with me now. She's staying with me. We've got a house and the whole thing.
We're one happy family in Austin, Texas. I can't stay away from my boy for that long,
or her."
"That's when I am at that place that I can call happy.”
But we can't help but wonder if perhaps this pair started spending more and more time apart.
By 2017, a source told E! News that Duhamel and Fergie simply weren't as close as they
used to be, revealing to the outlet,
"They completely grew apart. This was a long time coming and they've been trying to sort
everything out this past year."
Fergie herself hinted to Entertainment Tonight that the fire may have simply flamed out,
noting,
"Josh and I truly love each other. I mean, it's grown into a deeper thing to where it's
like, we're friends, you know what I mean? There's a deep love there."
Despite the couple's public claims, some insiders insist that Duhamel and Fergie didn't actually
have much in common, even from the very beginning. One source alleged to E! News,
"Josh is very down to earth and…Fergie's in a totally different world…They have always
had very separate lives and not a lot in common…There wasn't a lot of overlap in priorities…It
just became very clear that they are not on the same page and don't see things the same
way."
"People outside looking in think that we're so different. We really, you know, she's rock
n roll and I'm sort of a…"
"North Dakota.”
Another source told People magazine that the couple simply grew apart from each other,
telling the outlet,
"A big factor is how different Fergie and Josh are. In the beginning, it was what attracted
them to each other and made them so fun to be around…[Fergie is] fun and outgoing,
[Josh is] charming and relaxed. But they come from totally different backgrounds and they
wanted different things."
A source told Us Weekly that Duhamel, the oldest of four children, didn't exactly have
the same appreciation for the glamorous Hollywood lifestyle that Fergie did. The insider claimed,
"[Duhamel] has always wanted a big family, [but] that lifestyle is something that isn't
a priority for Fergie. She came from divorced parents and didn't have as normal of a childhood
as Josh did."
These differing perspectives may also have affected the couple's parenting. A source
revealed that Duhamel was bringing up his son, Axl, in a grounded, relatively normal
way, but says Fergie didn't do the same, adding,
"[Duhamel] felt [Fergie] wasn't doing normal mom activities, and that made Josh frustrated."
"We are parenting our son as, as, as health, as healthy as we can.”
Post-split, the couple have been adamant about how well their co-parenting works, but there
still could have been a fundamental difference in the type of family they originally wanted.
Fergie told Oprah in 2012 about the number of kids they had hoped for, saying,
"Two's our number. We negotiated that early on."
"Really? Two's the number?"
"Well, because he told me he wanted five, and I said I'm not going any higher than two.”
But in 2015, Fergie told Allure,
"I felt that it was either going to be another baby or an album [coming next]."
She opted for the album, but that same year, Duhamel gushed to Access Hollywood,
"I'd love to [have another baby], hopefully in the next year or two."
"Maybe I can knock her up tonight."
In 2015, Fergie revealed that she and Duhamel were attending regular therapy sessions, adding
that Duhamel was enthusiastic about doing the work on their marriage. She told Allure,
"He's not afraid. He doesn't feel like he's not man enough."
She also opened up about the couples' struggles in August 2017, saying that her song "Save
It 'Til Morning" is about a lovers' quarrel that spins out of control. She told Entertainment
Tonight Canada,
"You know what, it's so not worth it, because those things stick with you. I don't really
like to fight anymore…It's not worth hurting each other, because we hurt the ones we love
the most sometimes, because we feel the most safe. It's just about, let's not have those
ugly words just sitting there for each other. Let's just take a breath."
At some point, the couple must have worked through their issues, because following their
split, Duhamel sat down with actor Dax Shephard for his Armchair Expert podcast, where Duhamel
admitted,
"Fergie and I had a great relationship. I love that girl and I always will. Unfortunately,
we didn't work, but I will always have her back and she is the mother of my baby."
In 2009, just months after Fergie and Duhamel's wedding, the National Enquirer reported that
Duhamel enjoyed a guys' night out at a strip club that went way too far. While Duhamel
was filming the romantic comedy Life as We Know It, in Atlanta, he and a dancer who went
by the stage name "Delilah" allegedly hooked up in his hotel room. Duhamel and Fergie denied
the claims, but the dancer reportedly sold her story to the tabloid for $20,000 and passed
a polygraph test. In 2012, Fergie admitted to Oprah,
"When you go through difficult times, it really makes you stronger as a unit, as a partnership.
It does for us, anyway. Our love today is a deeper love. We're stronger today definitely
because of anything difficult that's happened with us. We deal with it, we communicate.
Communicating [is] the most important thing."
"It was rough for a while, it was one of the most difficult things we went through, but,
you know, now I think we're stronger than we've ever been because of that."
Duhamel also revealed to Oprah,
"I'm actually happy that all that happened, because we wouldn't be as strong as we are
now. As much anger as I carried about it before, I'm actually thankful that it did happen,
because in a lot of ways, it made me straighten my ass out."
"The whole thing just became a positive for us.”
But it appeared their facade was already cracking.
It turns out, the couple may have never fully healed after those initial incidents. A source
told Star that Fergie even sent spies to observe Duhamel at an event in Beverly Hills in 2016.
The insider claimed the spies told Fergie that Duhamel was flirting with many women,
but when she confronted him about the allegations, the source said, quote "Josh swore nothing
happened." Radar Online also reported that Fergie made a lot of unannounced on-set visits
while Duhamel was filming The Buddy Games with Olivia Munn to reportedly, quote "keep
a close eye on [him]."
But Duhamel's allegedly frisky antics were the last straw for Fergie, according to an
insider who spoke with In Touch, claiming,
"Josh was still flirty with women. He'd lean in and whisper in their ears…and acted single…They
are both consumed by work, and that has made it difficult for them to spend time together.
When they were together, it seemed like plans were always made around their son. She was
patient with Josh but she finally called it quits."
With Fergie focusing on her long-awaited 2017 album Double Dutchess, and Duhamel busy filming
the TV series The Unsolved, their schedules became harder and harder to manage. In 2015,
Fergie revealed that their work schedules were built around their son, Axl, and their
marriage, telling Allure,
"We've already talked about how we're going to have to trade off. He's going to have to
come on tour with Axl for a while, and then there'll be a break. He'll take a job; I'll
be on set with [Axl]. You know?"
"When you have a kid and you have a job, there is this balancing act that you do.”
By August 2017, the couple was in full-on juggle mode, with Fergie telling Entertainment
Tonight Canada,
"The Google Calendar is everything. It's color-coded, everything's got categories, and we've just
got to be really organized about our planning because it's really important for us that
[our son] Axl comes first…We're trying to make it happen right now and it's a little
bit tough, but we're doing it and we just love him."
That Google cal apparently stopped working at some point, or, as a source told Entertainment
Tonight,
"Their schedules were so busy that it was almost a surprise when you would see them
together…[But] Axl was always on their mind no matter what they were doing."
"Axl's doing great. He really is. He doesn't, you know, the kid gets so much love. He's
flourishing."
A source alleged to Life & Style that Fergie was the one who finally ended the marriage.
The insider said,
"We really thought they were working things out. This is shocking. But Fergie and Josh
were fighting a lot."
“You never know what the universe is gonna throw at you.”
The source claimed that in July 2017, the fighting intensified ahead of an appearance
Duhamel was slated to make for Haute Living, where Fergie was supposed to join him, and
never did. But perhaps the strain of keeping up appearances just became too much. Fergie
revealed to People magazine,
"Honestly, it was just getting a little weird for us with all the romantic questions…There's
no perfect time [to announce a divorce] so we just decided to do it. We just wanted to
get adjusted in private."
"Josh and I, there's so much love that we have for each other, we really like each other,
we have fun with each other, we're just not a romantic couple anymore."
A source told Us Weekly that Fergie and Duhamel had actually been trying to get pregnant in
the year before they split, adding,
"There had been a lot of talk in Fergie and Josh's household about expanding the family."
Of course, tabloid "insider" speculation should always be taken with a grain of salt. That
is, until the celeb confirms those rumors in their own words. Duhamel told Dax Shepard's
podcast in 2018,
"I'm not 30 years old anymore. I'm 45. I want to have more kids in the next few years…I'm
trying to find a girl that I can be with and have a family with."
After Fergie's brief career lull, she released her sophomore album Double Dutchess just days
after she and Duhamel announced their split in 2017. Naturally, this led to plenty of
speculation that the release date and announcement were part of a strategy to hype the record.
After all, Fergie had been scheduled to drop her new album two years before. Her 2014 single
"L.A. Love" peaked at Number 27 on the Billboard charts and stalled the release of the album.
Her next single, "MILF Money" had a heavily-hyped video featuring celebs like Chrissy Teigen,
Ciara, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Kim Kardashian. But that didn't help much because the track
peaked at Number 34 after its July 2016 release. Then, in December 2016, Fergie dropped "Life
Goes On," which didn't chart at all.
"Ok, I can do this, it's all gonna be OK."
Another reason people doubted the separation when it was announced, was because even Fergie's
own parents reportedly had no idea their daughter had split with Duhamel until it made headlines.
With hindsight, we now know Fergie and Duhamel's split was the real deal, but the timing and
circumstances of their separation announcement will always have us scratching our heads.
"You know, we're not together anymore romantically, but I have her back always."
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