My Statement

Tonight I rewatched Serenity (on the awesome new DVD), completing my little Firefly rewatching marathon that I had to do after reading xkcd's awesome comic from Monday. Afterwards I got on the computer to surf a little before going to bed. I checked my gmail and saw James Gunn had posted a new blog post, so I went over to MySpace to check it out, and it was just about the last thing in the world I expected:

"We (James and Jenna) need to announce that we have chosen to separate. We are sorry for any pain this causes family and friends. The enthusiasm we have expressed for each other's lives, spirits, and careers is real – we have been each other's cheerleader and friend during the past six years and continue to be so now and in the future.

"And a special note for our MySpace fans – We appreciate your support over the years, and would be overjoyed to have you continue supporting us both. You might be tempted to make one of us "feel better" by putting the other one down in a post. Please don't – we still have the utmost respect for one another, and we'd have to delete you. We aren't taking questions or doing interviews about this particular aspect of our lives. We're also avoiding reading any press on the subject, so don't send us any clippings or links about the split. Thank you in advance for respecting our privacy."

(Source: James Gunn's MySpace page and Jenna Fischer's MySpace page).

My first thought was that it had to be a joke. So I checked Jenna's page and saw the same statement. My next thought was that maybe their MySpace pages were hacked. Then I saw the time of the posts, about 3:30 this afternoon. If it had been hacking that would have been fixed by now. Just to make sure I googled their names and apparently it's on news sites, apparently with the MySpace messages as the source. As if that wasn't enough, if you think about it, the day after the release of a season of The Office on DVD is probably the perfect day to announce something like this for maximum privacy to keep immediate fan reaction to an absolute minimum, since everyone's spending all their free time in front of their TVs and not their computers.

Since it's real, my reaction is mainly shock. In interviews Jenna always described James as her real life Jim, and they seemed to be the perfect couple. So what happened? Were they both so busy with their mutually successful careers that they were left with too little little time for each other? Did Jenna's back injury create / exacerbate problems they were having? Did one or both of them meet someone else? It's certainly not any of my business, but I can't help but wonder. I mean, if the real Pam and the real Jim can't make it, what chance do the rest of us have?

I don't know either of them personally, but I'm a big fan of both their work, including James' Slither, The Toy Collector, Lollilove, etc., and Jenna's The Office, Blades Of Glory, Lollilove, etc.

In any case, regardless of what happened or what comes next for them, I wish them both the very best.