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Amanda Batula and Kyle Cooke were FaceTiming when they announced their separation. “It was a sad moment, but also a relief,” Batula told Marie Claire, “and I’m really happy we did it together.” The Kymanda divorce has been as collaborative as Loverboy once was, and Batula wants to underscore that this is an amicable separation. Fans have been so solidly on Team Amanda that Cooke is getting called “toxic” and “emotionally abusive” in the comments. “It was a huge fear of mine when we separated that he was going to get this treatment,” Batula said. “It also stopped me from calling it quits on our relationship earlier because I don’t want people to attack, hurt, or villainize him. He’s not a bad person. We are two people who couldn’t make it work. It’s unfortunate, but he doesn’t deserve the hate he’s getting. Let me hate that man. He doesn’t need the entire internet doing it.”
This is a pattern we see on the macro (with celeb couples) and micro — the phenomenon The Cut recently named “I Love My Husband (Who Hates Me)” behavior. The real love for a partner is weighed against a desire to leave, then also with the judgment of others. Beyond concern for Cooke’s reputation, Batula says the fan hate made her less certain of her own opinions. “It’s part of why it took me longer than it should have to call it quits,” she said, “because I needed to feel 100 percent secure in my decision and absolutely certain it was mine and mine alone — that it wasn’t coming from production, my friends, my family, or the audience.” So … production was saying it too?
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