Sophie Turner covers one of Harper’s Bazaar UK’s Woman of the Year issues. Sophie has had a notable year, which started when she and Joe Jonas separated last year, then filed for divorce, which then briefly became a really major international custodial dispute over their two daughters. They agreed to mediation in New York, and quickly worked out a temporary and then permanent custodial situation, and Sophie now lives full-time in the UK. In 2024, she’s been working non-stop and enjoying a romance with a British aristocrat. She spoke about all of this and more with Bazaar:
What went wrong in her marriage to Joe: “I’m going through a legal process right now where I can’t really say much, but it was incredibly sad. We had a beautiful relationship, and it was hard.”
She’s happy to be back in England: “I’m so happy to be back. It felt as if my life was on pause until I returned to England. I just never really feel like myself when I’m not in London, with my friends and family. I was away for so long – six years – and it was when my friends were getting engaged, and when I got pregnant. I went for dinner with someone the other day, and she said, ‘I never got to touch your belly.’ We didn’t have those key experiences with each other.”
She suffered from homesickness in America: “Every city we ended up in, the first thing I’d do was find a British shop and stock up on a month’s worth of chocolate” – but it was the politics that she found hardest to cope with. “The gun violence, Roe v Wade being overturned… Everything just kind of piled on. After the Uvalde [school] shooting, I knew it was time to get the f–k out of there.”
Motherhood: “[It] changed me so much in every way. Before I had kids, I was very depressed and anxious, and I would isolate [myself] a lot. Now, I think I live my life for them. I want them to see me having a social life and enjoying work and thriving in my career and relationships. I want them to see a hard-working mum. I’ll come back and say, ‘This is why Mummy was away – it’s because she’s doing this for you, so Father Christmas can come with a big bundle of presents.’”
Child stardom: “At that age, all I knew was I wanted to act. I didn’t even think about my weight or how I looked, it was just, ‘This is fun, I get to play every day.’ I learnt far too young what I’m supposed to look like, and how I’m supposed to behave. I think that’s how child stars end up being so messed up, because they’re not allowed to make mistakes, and therefore they’re not allowed to grow…”
She developed bulimia, then anorexia in her teens: “What a whopper of an eating disorder that was! It still affects me. I don’t think it ever leaves you, I think you just try to learn to manage it. If I see a plate of food, I still feel a little bit of dread. But the great thing about being a mother is that I get to teach my kids how to have a healthy relationship with their bodies, which feels like a justice to myself.”
She’s still tight with her Game of Thrones friends: “I went from 13 to 23 on that show – it was my whole childhood. We’re all still on a massive group chat, and we try and meet each other whenever we’re in the same country… they’re family.” She is planning to get the fading dire-wolf tattoo on her arm re-inked. “That will stay forever. I wish it wasn’t so massive, but you make mistakes, don’t you?”
Her romantic life: Since the end of last year, she has been dating Peregrine Pearson, who is in line to become the 5th Viscount of Cowdray. “We’re very happy,” she says, blushing, when I ask how it’s going. “It came around very quickly. I just needed to go on a date to know how to do it again. That was the first date and the last date, and it’s been great.” What’s he like? “He’s lovely. He’s funny, and he brings out the cheeky side of me, the fun side. He lights me back up.”
It’s amazing to see how much she’s blossomed since returning to the UK – when she lived in America, she rarely went out for anything other than Joe’s events, she didn’t work much, and I think Joe really encouraged her to be a stay-at-home mom. I wonder about what looks like a 50/50 custody split and whether they can make that work internationally forever, but I appreciate that she’s not airing all of that in the media. Maybe it will change, maybe it won’t. I also get why she felt like she needed to leave the US, and I bet that was magnified so much during the pandemic and during the Trump administration.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red. Cover courtesy of Bazaar UK.