When I feel like crap, gospel music lifts me up. Or Aretha Franklin.

For my entire youth, basically, Aretha was a single lady. I didn’t realize she’d ever been married until recently.

So when I learned she was engaged, I was excited. He must be awesome, I figured. Friends for a long time, huh? Sounds like a keeper.

We know that Oprah’s not ever, EVER getting married to Stedman, and good for her for standing up for her vision of a relationship that serves her. And I guess Ree-Ree decided the same thing, since the engagement was called off three weeks after it was announced.

“Regretfully, To Our Friends and Supporters: Will and I have decided we were moving a little too fast, and there were a number of things that had not been thought through thoroughly … There will be no wedding at this time,” they wrote in a statement.

I wondered why I cared so much about her relationship anyway. It’s not like I was going to be marrying the guy. It made me think about when rumors surfaced about Will and Jada Smith getting divorced and people started freaking out on Facebook. “NO! Not THEM!” I guess it’s because they are the quintessential black celebrity couple of my generation, and we grew up watching them on sitcoms and become stars, so it’s hard to see their marriage dissolve. Or maybe it’s deeper.

When Seal and Heidi, then Katy Perry and Russell Brand, after Demi and Ashton, split up, I just kept thinking, “What is going on that wealthy, attractive famous people can’t or won’t keep their marriages together?”

That’s a generalization, of course. There are dozens of well-known celebrity marriages that have lasted a long time. I wondered if you guys wondered what was going on with this spate of celebrity splits or if it was just me? I’m trying to figure out if there’s something in our culture that’s counterproductive to marriages lasting as long as they did a generation ago or if the holidays stressed people out and it’s a fake news trend or what.