Actress Gabrielle Union says she splits the bills 50/50 with her even wealthier husband, Dwyane Wade, and it’s got social media heated.
Union, 50, who is married to former NBA player Dwyane Wade, 41, said in a recent Bloomberg interview that “it’s weird to say I’m head of household because, in this household, we split everything 50/50.”
That set off a firestorm among the Twitterati.
“Gabrielle Union said she go 50/50 with a man who is a part owner of an NBA team,” noted one tweet. “the lights are on but ain’t nobody home.”
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“If I’m going 50/50 I can live alone!” another tweeter said in response to a comment about the celebrity pair and their finances.
So why do folks care so much about how a celebrity couple pays its bills?
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Gender roles and money
It may have to do in part with how society continues to wrestle with ideas around gender roles and who should be the primary breadwinner with some questioning why Union would split expenses when she’s married to a former professional athlete who, according to CNBC, made $196 million during his 16 years playing in the NBA.
“To this day in 2023, if a woman’s husband is rich, everyone is like ‘Why do you work,'” says Juliet Williams, a gender studies professor at UCLA. “But if the woman is rich, no one is saying ‘Dwyane Wade, why are you trying so hard on the basketball court?’ It’s massively sexist … Anybody who’s ever done a good honest day’s work knows there’s a tremendous sense of agency and autonomy and self-respect that no one should have to give up even if they happen to be married to someone that’s very rich.’’
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The social media frenzy may also reflect the reality that many people are just plain uncomfortable discussing money, some say.
“I think in general people avoid talking about money, and so when a celebrity talks about money, I think it likely will generate strong opinions,’’ says James Lee, a certified financial planner in Saratoga Springs, New York who is board president for the Financial Planning Association.
Lee says that most of his clients do not think of their household expenses as something they split or pay for separately.
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“In my experience, most married couples pool their income and pay their expenses as a unit rather than having one individual pay certain expenses,’’ he says. But whether the rent or car note is paid from one joint account or each partner assumes responsibility for certain bills, couples need to have a discussion.
“It’s really important for partners or spouses to have conversations about money and to talk first of all about the values that each individual has and then … make sure that their money decisions are in alignment with their life priorities,” Lee says. “It’s healthy … to make sure that each partner is in agreement with how income and expense are going to be treated.’’
Those discussions should go beyond what size house a couple will aim to buy to “day-to-day things, like is it more important for the couple to dedicate a portion of our budget towards eating out … or is it more important to use that money to save for retirement,” Lee says “There’s always going to be money decisions and trade-offs between spending now or saving for future goals and it’s important for couples to communicate about those kinds of decisions so they can have less conflict.”
Separate households
He adds that “it’s even more important” to have an understanding about expenses and how they’re covered if, like Union and Wade, you have family members outside your immediate household you are helping to support.
Union, stepmother to three of Wade’s children, talks about those additional obligations in her Bloomberg interview.
“But in the other households that each of us have to support, there’s always this gorilla on your back that is like, ‘You better work! You better work! You want to sleep in? Somebody might not eat.’ And it’s hard. It’s hard to let that go, so I’m working on that,” she said.
Lee says he has clients in similar situations “and there is communication and discussion about how those family members, those children, will be supported from an income standpoint and ultimately from an estate planning standpoint as well.’’
How should couples plan financially?
There are certain steps couples can take to create a financial road map:
⋄Discuss your priorities. Do you want to put off movie nights to have more extra cash to set aside for retirement? Or is entertainment just as important?
⋄Decide if you want each partner to cover certain bills or if you prefer to pool your income. “It really depends on the individuals and the couple how they decide to treat expenses,’’ Lee says.
⋄Have a plan for those outside your household: If you’re supporting other family members, figure out those finances, from covering their bills to estate planning.
Gen Z may and Gen X may have different financial concerns
Of course, some of the back and forth on social media appears to have less to do with dollars and cents and more to do with more personal matters, with some critics declaring Union shouldn’t split bills with Wade because he has children from other relationships Union is helping to co-parent.
Union said in her memoir “You Got Anything Stronger?” that Wade had fathered a child with another woman when she and Wade briefly split in 2013 before becoming engaged that same year.
The couple has a 4-year-old daughter, Kaavia, and Wade also has two children, Zaire, 21, and Zaya, 15, from a previous marriage, and a son, Xavier, 9, from another relationship.
Additionally, at a time when inflation is high and many average Americans are struggling to stay afloat financially, some on social media didn’t seem to appreciate that Union said she felt pressured to work to make sure she could support her loved ones.
“I’m not splitting anything with a man who got 3 kids + a bonus child,” one commenter tweeted, adding “why does millionaire Gabrielle Union sound like she living paycheck-to-paycheck w/a husband?”
Williams from UCLA believes there’s a generational split between commenters online. While older people are more likely to think Union should allow her wealthy husband to cover their bills, those in Gen Z are “saying we don’t want to hear rich people talk about anything at all, and especially not about how to make it in this world,” she says, adding that there seems to be a backlash from young people who are dealing with “these huge debts from education and credit cards and the precarity of work.”
Gabrielle Union splits the bills:Gabrielle Union says she and husband Dwyane Wade split ‘everything 50/50’ in their household
But while Williams says she understands those frustrations, she believes that Union shouldn’t be judged so harshly. “I think everybody in an intimate relationship one way or another is dealing with politics of gender,” she says. “I wouldn’t dismiss Union for, in my opinion, very bravely and generously opening up about a challenging area of her experience.’’
Some on social media also praised Union’s openness.
“Honestly I’m not sure how Gabrielle Union still has the wherewithal to share such deep insight into her life,” tweeted @thecrystaluncut. “Like she shares vulnerably and transparently in a way that like 70% of the population can’t or chooses not to understand and she gets dogpiled on for it. I couldn’t.”
And some feel it’s much ado about nothing.
“Gabrielle Union is a multimillionaire married to a multimillionaire. Better don’t worry about which bills they are splitting and focus on your bills that are due.”
