Emily Ratajkowski has opened up about how she resents being labeled a “divorced single mother” following her divorce from ex-husband Sebastian Bear-McClard.
In a vulnerable essay published in the June 12 issue of The Cut, the 35-year-old model and actress chronicled her experience grappling with single motherhood, re-entering the dating world, and the emotional turmoil that comes with it.
She briefly touched on how her marriage to Bear-McClard “disintegrated” in “a period that felt both quick and excruciatingly slow” six months after giving birth to son Sly, five. She described the transition to motherhood as “a violent transition to a new reality of a baby screaming over an aching breast and a ring on a swollen finger.”
Ratajkowski and her husband married in 2018 and separated in 2022. The divorce was finalized in 2025. After the separation, she said she was forced to confront her long-held fear of becoming a single mother.
She said she noticed that when she met new men, many were excited about the fact that she was a mother. “They were particularly drawn to the idea that being a parent meant self-sacrifice in my life. Did they want me as a mother? Maybe,” she wrote.
Emily Ratajkowski says she’s entered the era of being the ‘villain’ in the dating scene
Ratajkowski said that she intentionally embodies the role of a villain when she puts herself out there on a date, explaining that she considers herself “a woman who doesn’t need anything from a man” and that she draws inspiration from comic book characters such as Poison Ivy and Catwoman.
“I’ve watched too much and discovered that many women only act when they’re in their mid-40s and divorced. I had a failed unit and was still barely in my 30s. Here’s my villainous origin story,” she wrote. “I was a city person. Being a New Yorker made being a single mom feel sexier. Bohemian. At least that’s what I told myself.”
She then spoke about her relationship with a man she described as “the elder statesman of the millennial generation.” When he first told her he loved her, just three weeks into their relationship, she said she felt “the usual anxiety in my chest.”
After politely asking if she could remain non-exclusive, she said she watched him begin to realize that he was “the dead-eyed supervillain I’ve been playing all along.”
“Despite playing a supervillain, even though the character believed I was invulnerable, I was just as misguided and vulnerable as I had been in my 20s when I was playing the good girl,” she wrote. “I never connected with my own desires. It was all nonsense, a stupid game of empty performances.”
Ratajkowski has long essayed as an outspoken defender of women’s rights. My Body is a 2021 collection of essays that explores themes such as female empowerment, ownership of one’s sexuality, and the exploitative tendencies of the entertainment and fashion industries.
Contributor: Anna Kaufman, USA TODAY
