Toxic Couples: The Jonah and Sarah Edition!

I was going to leave this story alone until I saw it had legs and some heat around it. That's the journo speak; that's how we talk on the beat. So I am going to go with it. I have been in dark places to bring you this story. I went to the trenches for you. By this, I mean I read the Daily Fail and now need deep soul cleansing to wash away some of the lunacy in the comment section. I went to the Belly of the Beast for research because Jonah Hills' texts are the messages everyone is talking about. I am sure most of you had or have feelings about this, so why don't we discuss them? 

People's opinions about these texts (may need to zoom) vary depending on how they learned about them, their history, and their dating life. If you have been in a controlling relationship, this might cause a big reaction; otherwise, you may see him as a jackass with issues, or some even empathize with him. I have seen comments blaming Sarah for his behavior, and while she may have been imperfect, she didn't beat him silly with her surfboard and demand he write damning texts. Our Jonah did that all by himself. However, this story is fast moving, and I think this might be the tip of the iceberg because we know a pile-on might be coming after a second hit (it came) comes down the pike and begins the thrashing that plenty of people have been waiting to dish out. When you put your boot on the foreheads of others on your way up, they are all about knocking your ass out on the way down, 

The messages constantly refer to his need to be respected, and he seems to have issues with Sarah's job as a professional surfer and model. When he met her, it wasn't like she was teaching kindergarteners to read Bible Verses in a tiny town in Alabama. She is a surfer, and they wear bathing suits. Surfers who model wear bathing suits too. If you look through her IG, she is not a Koven member wearing the tiniest bikinis she could find trying to attract the male gaze. I see her in one-pieces, simple bikinis, and wetsuits mostly. She wasn't posing lewd as far as I can see. It partially gives credence to her argument that he is a bad boyfriend with serious issues.

But is he a misogynist, an emotional abuser, or a Narcissist? Those are heavy words to fling at people, and they are often used to get the biggest reactions--it would mean he is more than a very insecure boyfriend, and it would mean he goes further and leaves behind abuse victims. They are Internet buzzwords at the moment, often overused and misused when calling someone an extreme asshole would have been enough. Not every super egocentric jerk's issues are clinical and intractable. It doesn't mean his problems are in the DSM (Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), the accepted, sometimes controversial tool the mental health community refers to in order to give an official label to someone's cluster of symptoms. 

Over the years, I have heard not-so-nice things about him. I heard he was rude and dismissive and could stonewall and give people silent treatments. Some tidbits and whispers said that he is a bit creepy. There were even things in the mainstream entertainment press about his poor attitude and how unlikeable he was. A list of enemies exists, and a second woman has come forward with accusations. But this still does not mean he has a Personality Disorder. Jonah is as rotten as a prison sewer system, allegedly (I know his lawyers are gearing up for whatever may come but TayTay saw some post by an unknown blogger and threatened to sue her, so I will scream it ALLEGEDLY) yet this does not make his out of bounds behavior pathological. He can be narcissistic but with a small 'n' and not a capital one. To call him mentally ill when so far we don't know that is unfair to people living with mental illness, and it gives him an out he may not deserve. He's sick, see. 

At first, this seemed black and white, but then I thought about a few things. Sarah is the one who chooses which texts to share, and they haven't officially been together for over a year; plus, he had a baby in May with his girlfriend, Olivia Millar. In a fresh batch of screenshots, she claims that he was sexting her back in August 2022. (We should file a class action suit against her for mental cruelty-no one needed that extra detail.) So why share all this now?

Hors, what do you think? Does her publicly releasing these messages make her a victim/hero, just as guilty, or somewhere in between? And, further, do you believe she was right in releasing them?