As a makeup obsessed young woman in her twenties, I have been obsessed with Jaclyn Hill for quite sometime. I went out of my way to get her Morphe palette when it first released, I get notifications whenever she tweets, and I've seen most of her YouTube videos at least twice.
On May 25th, 2018, Jaclyn Hill posted a video to her channel entitled "Life Update: Divorce," in which she detailed more information regarding her previously announced divorce from well known husband, Jon Hill. Anyone who had seen Jaclyn's videos and Instagram knew that her and Jon posted a lot of things together, including video collaborations and selfies in which they talked about one another and seemed genuinely happy in their marriage.
Jaclyn mentioned in her video detailing the divorce that despite their unhappiness, she felt the need to prolong their marriage in an attempt to show her fans what a "happy" and "healthy" marriage looked like, seeing as most fans saw them as being a picture perfect couple.
In her video, Jaclyn states that her and Jon were good at putting on figurative masks and pretending to be happy in front of a camera when they were struggling in their marriage. Being a fan, I did cry at this video. I didn't cry because a woman I didn't know was divorcing some guy I also didn't know.
I cried because this woman I had envied for so long because of her wealth, success and possessions had been struggling just as much as I had been, if not more so. It got me thinking that we don't see our role models struggles, we only see the happiness they show us. As fans, we never know if they're as happy as we think they are.
In addition to this, I realized that I had always thought Jaclyn was happy 24/7 because of her gorgeous, huge customized house, her wealth, her expensive makeup and clothes collections, and the things she was able to do and buy because of her wealth and success. As I watched her try not to break down on camera, I realized that after doing my best to not judge others based on appearances and first impressions, I'd been doing that exact same thing with my role model.
Since I learned about Jaclyn's divorce, I've been doing my best to look at celebrities' social media posts and gossip on a different level. Instead of envying them, I've been trying to relate to them. I think that this is a point of view everyone should try to take toward their role models at least once. You may have more in common with your idols than you think you do.
