The Avengers star opens up about how it feels having to live through those “clickbait” moments in the public eye — and shares where thing stand between him and Sonni Pacheco now.
It’s hard enough having to go through the breakup of a marriage, but then having details of it — whether accurate or not — smeared across international headlines makes it even worse. That’s what happened to Jeremy Renner when his marriage ended in 2019.
But it wasn’t just the dissolution of his marriage to Sonni Pacheco after 10 months, or the custody battle the two would get embroiled in over their then-6-year-old daughter Ava Berlin, that made things so hard. Imagine being accused of trying to kill your ex-wife amid all of that.
Now, six years later, Renner — who denied the allegations at the time — says he’s learned to try and “find a way of laughing through” “whatever stress I’ve had in life.”
When asked by The Guardian in a new interview over the weekend if he was referring to anything specific that he’s had to find a way to laugh through, the Hawkeye star said, “Being accused of things you’ve not done, right? That doesn’t feel good to anybody.”
“It certainly doesn’t feel good when you’re a celebrity and it’s known to everybody,” he added, referring to the public scrutiny of celebrity personal lives.
He then reportedly confirmed he was specifically, in this case, referring to the 2019 allegations that he’d tried to kill his ex-wife and then himself. The allegations first went public during their divorce proceedings, with Renner reiterating that there was no truth to them.
According to TMZ at the time, Pacheco alleged in court documents that Renner was high on cocaine and alcohol when he talked about killing her and then put a gun in his mouth and threatened to kill himself.
“No, and they happen all the time,” he told the Guardian of purportedly false allegations like these becoming a part of the public conversation. “It’s all the salaciousness that happens out there. It’s clickbait, and it hurts my feelings and it dehumanizes people.”
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Digging a little deeper, Renner acknowledged that some of this comes with the territory of being a public figure, and he’s largely reached a point where “it doesn’t matter to me what people say.”
He’s also come to understand, he explained, “They’re saying it for their own reasons and not for the right reasons or the truth.” He went on to note he doesn’t read reviews or comments for this reason. “I don’t care. That’s not part of my life,” he emphasized.
He did, however, push back elsewhere in the interview at the notion that his life during Ava’s early years was one of drugs and alcohol abuse. “That’s not really my style,” he said. Instead, he describes his life as more of a “carnival-type” existence, with his extensive and regular travel.
At the time, he pushed back hard against the allegations, with TMZ reporting that Renner tuned the accusations back on Pacheco, accusing her of looking for a cash grab when she described his home as a place filled with women coming and going and drugs reality available, even when he had Ava with him. Renner said at the time that he’d submitted himself to random testing for three months to prove he didn’t abuse drugs or alcohol.
He admitted to the Guardian this weekend that he did spend most of the free time he did have during those years in Los Angeles, with his young daughter, and that the choice did lead to a somewhat unorthodox home life.
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“The place in L.A. was where I was raising my child, where everyone learned to ride a bike and swim. I also had my music there,” he shared. “I had my meetings there. It was my dating life. It was my club. It was my home. It was all the things that encompass someone’s life.”
In fact, he admits he might have taken the social aspect a little too far when it came to their home. “If you meet a person and grab a pint, instead of meeting up at a pub, I’d just do it at my house. It was like an open-door policy for all my family and friends. It was great for them,” he said, admitting, “That’s not a normal home. Homes aren’t usually like that or run like that way. So that’s no longer.”
As for his marriage’s end, despite filing for sole custody, Pacheco ultimately settled for joint custody of their daughter with Renner. Even more importantly, their co-parenting relationship has clearly improved significantly from those days.
Renner explained that now he and Pacheco “get along very well, and we’re in each other’s lives. It’s lovely.”
At the same time, he’s not interested in feeding the beast, insisting on keeping his private life and relationship with his ex just that, private. “It’s no one’s business,” he explained of their current relationship status, offering only, “It’s great. She’s got a new baby and she sends me beautiful pictures.”
