Why are people so insistent that because Jensen and Danneel are still married and she’s wormed her way into business with him that means they’re so in love? (This ended up being so long, I’m so sorry! I always send you the longest deep dives 😅).
Their relationship was never about love. They were two people partied together and cheated on their partners with each other. When their partners broke up with them, Danneel clung onto Jensen and he let her because he had nothing else going on. Very much a situationship. One person treats it like a real relationship (Danneel), the other as a regularly occurring, no strings attached hook up (Jensen). Then he suddenly was at the age where all of his friends were getting married and the studio was probably on his back about having a partner for his image because 1. Bachelorhood isn’t a good look once you hit a certain age and 2. The gay rumors. Conveniently, he was hooking up with a girl employed by the same network. Her career looked promising at the time, so Jensen gets a little nudge from higher ups to make it official. Danneel gets the press and status she needs to keep her career on the same upwards trajectory, Jensen keeps his wholesome guy from Texas image he had at the time, and they get to be the replacement network power couple after Sophia Bush and Chad Michael Murray didn’t work out. That’s why the timeline of their relationship is so sketchy, because it was all manufactured. One moment Jensen was recently single, the next he was claiming that he had been dating an “up and coming actress for a few years” (his actual words, I’ll try and find the interview) and why there are no pictures from their relationship prior to going public. Because there was no relationship.
I don’t think the relationship was meant to last beyond a couple of years of dating. The idea probably was they would stay together long enough to get Danneel her clout and cement Jensen’s reputation as a good man who doesn’t use women. But she’s a schemer, there’s no way she was letting him go. And this is where my point about everyone around Jensen getting married comes in. I think seeing everyone around him getting married made him feel as though he was getting old, and needed to get married too. Jared, who is four years younger than him, getting married really sealed the deal panic wise. Danneel preyed on that and got her ring. Then, she stirred up the gay rumors so that Jensen would feel even more pressure to get married. If he had broken off the engagement, tabloids would have taken that as proof that he was gay. It also served the purpose of making sure that people knew not only who she was, but who she was going to be- Mrs. Ackles. Then a short engagement to lessen the chances of Jensen getting cold feet. Jensen still got cold feet, and she was prepared for that so she made sure there would be people around to talk him off the ledge and down the aisle. The wedding pictures say it all, like most pictures of the two of them do. Her smug face, his parents pinched expressions and Jensen’s eyes looking super distant (nothing says true love like having to be high to get though your own wedding).
From the moment the marriage certificate was signed, the (failing to this day) long con of Mr. and Mrs. Ackles, Hollywood power couple, began. No honeymoon for the “stars”, but straight to Upfronts to parade around her new husband and promote herself and her new show. Friends with Benefits was supposed to launch her to stardom. She wanted to be the next Jennifer Aniston, and Jensen was going to be her Brad Pitt. This was also around the time that she was heavily campaigning to replace Megan Fox in Transformers. Friends With Benefits was a total failure, and NBC knew that was going to happen before it even aired. They moved it from being a mid-season replacement for the 2010-11 season to a summertime premiere, a death sentence for any TV show. They didn’t even air the season finale, it was first made available when the show was put on iTunes and Netflix in 2018. Her other two projects released that year were a small role in Mardi Gras: Spring Break (best described as a trashy/dirty movie made for teenage boys to watch when their mothers aren’t looking) and reprising her role as Kumar’s girlfriend in the final Harold & Kumar movie. After that she had small roles in two other cancelled after one season sitcoms (in 3/20 episodes of Retired at 35 and 2/13 episodes of How to Live with Your Parents for the Rest of Your Life). She would then pretend she was retiring from acting to become a mother, yet shortly after JJ was born filmed Baby Boot Camp, a Hallmark movie. Motherhood was a cover up for her failed career, and a way to keep Jensen in her clutches.
From 2010 to 2013 while Danneel tried to make it big, Jensen and Danneel are pretty public. He brings her as a plus one to events, there are paparazzi pics of them out and about fairly regularly, they live in LA with the rest of the stars. When they move to Austin in 2014 however, Danneel basically disappears. No more paid paparazzi, Jensen slowly starts bringing her to less events, and no career to give her visibility. Divorce rumors start to circulate (or rather recirculate. No one has believed in this relationship since the moment it went public). Then Danneel makes her Instagram public and verified. I specify public and verified because she was on Instagram for a while before her “first” post in August of 2015. She deleted a bunch of pictures, got verified and the era of being Jensen Ackles’s wife and mother of his children began. It’s not enough though. And from then on it’s a cycle of trying to gain attention. She’s constantly caught by fans trying to pass off Jensen content as current on Instagram. She tries several times to brand herself as an activist and get into liberal circles. She collabs with a jewelry line with little success. Her recent foray back into modeling. She gets zero attention outside of the fandom, and while she used to mock Gen for being a mommy blogger clearly wanted to be one as well, trying and failing a few times to make it as an influencer. Even with Jensen’s name she can’t make it- whether it’s internet fame or acting. The only time she’s active in the public eye is when she’s trying to prove her marriage. Divorce rumors- next thing you know she’s pregnant with twins. Divorce rumors again- Hilarie gets her a gig with a few other OTH stars in a hallmark Christmas movie. This backfired because no one recognized Danneel as Rachel after all the surgery. Divorce rumors again- guest spot on Supernatural and a family brewery that very conveniently doesn’t include Jensen’s side of the family. More divorce rumors- now they have a production company! She continues to accompany Jensen to less and less events until she’s absent from all of them. You may have noticed that once Gen didn’t need to pretend to be her friend to play up the image of “J2 are so close and their wives are too!” Danneel stopped being seen with her at events in Austin, in fact she stopped going to events entirely. Clearly Jensen wasn’t her only meal ticket.
And now we’re in the current marriage flop era. Post Supernatural has not been good to them. They’ve both admitted their marriage only works when they don’t really see each other and only talk on weekends and now that he’s not in Vancouver 9 months of the year they can’t hide behind that anymore. Cringey anniversary video trying to brand themselves as a humorous couple. No one does that unless they have something to prove. Danneel all but abandoning her social media after years of attention seeking, and after using lockdown to heavily promote the Ackles as a nuclear family unit. Never visited Jensen when travel restrictions were lifted while he was filming The Boys. Only family photos we’ve seen haven been taken outside of the home in public spaces (WB tour, NOLA boutique picture, Disney) and the only public proof of them cohabiting comes from them spending Christmas as a family in Colorado, and Jensen staying in the house they were renting in NOLA for a few days while the prequel pilot was being filmed. We know it was only for a few days because he was away filming for Big Sky at the time. She’s rarely seen with Jensen, and if they’re together they’re noticeably very drunk (FBBC Christmas party, Mardi Gras) or so visibly upset that even the most blind sheep fans notice (Upfronts). They can’t even pretend to be happy for the cameras anymore. What about any of this reads as a happy marriage to people? I have more to say, but this is already way too long so maybe another time lol.
Anon, I love you! 💖 You had the patience to explain everything in great detail. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this beautiful post, I enjoyed reading each paragraph and I hope you will share the rest as well!
"What about any of this reads as a happy marriage to people?" Indeed. Normal people acknowledge something is off about these two, especially those who are outside of fandom but I guess stans would rather empower their cult worship than face the truth.
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