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I've written before about how hyper-specific algorithms are getting, but when I saw Netflix had a section called “Hot Divorcée Summer”, I couldn't help but think this might not just be something I'm seeing…

Then, I saw this article from The Guardian in May, which proclaimed summer ‘26 as Hot Divorcée Summer. The article is mostly a shallow piece exploring the trend and the ‘vibe’ of being a divorced woman.

But the fact it exists at all… at the exact same time I’m going through a divorce, is a little spooky.

Screenshot from Euphoria, the character Maddie is sitting in an audience of a school hall and she says "Wait, is this fucking play about us?"

It got me thinking: is divorce actually a trend? Are more people getting divorced, and are women celebrating their freedom? Or is someone just playing tricks on me with this highly specific content?

Hot Divorcée Summer was coined by online comedian and content creator Tatty McLeod, who posted this reel back in April of this year.

Tatty isn't really talking about getting a divorce as much as the aesthetic of being a divorcée. She's not even divorced. She's got a boyfriend. She herself admits it's more of a state of mind.

It's obviously all very romanticised and tongue-in-cheek, but the fact that there's so much content talking about Hot Divorcée Summer when I’m also going through a divorce is something I couldn't help but dig into.

I guess, in some ways, it’s a natural evolution of Brat Summer, which saw a rebellion against the clean-girl aesthetic and a revival of what us oldies know as ‘indie sleaze’. Charli XCX brought chaos, messiness and partying, which felt really fucking good after a few years of hardship post-pandemic.

While Brat Summer was relatively universal, anyone old enough to remember 9/11 probably felt like they couldn’t keep up with the incessant sessioning and lack of bra-wearing. Hot Divorcée Summer is a more palatable spin on female empowerment, while also rejecting toxic masculinity from beneath the brim of a big floppy hat, Aperol spritz in hand.

Yes and no.

According to ONS data, around 42% of marriages end in divorce. This is pretty much on par with pre-pandemic figures. So, while the introduction of no-fault divorce in 2022 has made it easier to file to end a marriage without blame, there's not actually a significant trend of everyone leaving their spouses in 2026.

This makes the fact that the social media trend of Hot Divorcée Summer is happening at the exact same time as my actual divorce even more bizarre.

Perhaps it's less about women actually getting divorced and more about how women are feeling fatigued by their mounting responsibilities.

I wrote a few weeks ago about Love Languages and how heterosexual women have been done dirty by the idea that Acts of Service could ever be parallel to Physical Touch in terms of an exchange of affection in relationships. The fact is, we’re the first generation in which you need two full-time salaries just to consider raising a child, and even then, it’s a stretch to pay the bills. Then you’ve got the domestic responsibilities, which largely still fall on women (even those of us who work), and before you know it, you’ve got resentment coming out the wazoo.

Divorce isn't possible for everyone; some people can't afford it or choose not to leave marriage for various other reasons. So, for those women, romanticising it could be the only option.

In that way, Hot Divorcée Summer is great if you can't get a divorce, but you want to be carefree and medicated.

In a more serious (and realistic) take, fellow Substacker Nicole Ocran writes:

Divorce asks you to grieve, to rebuild, and to reintroduce yourself to yourself. It forces you to reckon with who you are when the life you planned no longer exists. And if you’re very fortunate, what emerges on the other side isn’t bitterness or regret, but freedom.

Ding, ding! It’s all about freedom. Something many women see as merely aspirational, despite being raised to think that marriage, kids, and careers would bring that desired freedom (spoiler: it doesn’t).

It's also interesting to see how we're reframing our view of divorced women.

In the 90s and even 00s, the profile of a divorced woman was either a single mother with kids (and a wicked step-mother nemesis), or a sexually promiscuous and often clueless (borderline predatory) older woman who loved to collect the souls of younger men.

animated GIF from The White Lotus of Tanya, played by Jennifer Coolidge, pleading "please! these gays they're trying to murder me."

Nowadays, being a divorced woman is a lot more socially acceptable. In fact, in the year of our lord 2026, it’s chic.

That being said, no trend comes without its own capitalistic endeavours. Even Vogue wrote about how brands can “tap into” HDS, which is hilariously ironic to me given that the last time I was this skint was at uni.

Williams for the Guardian confirms I’m not the only one whose feathers are ruffled by the romanticisation of divorce:

You’ll have spotted a flaw, of course: at the heart of divorcee spirit is that you haven’t a care in the world, because you’ve just divorced Jeff Bezos, whereas, in real life, there is absolutely no way you’re not poorer. It’s fine; you can do melodrama off Vinted. And you don’t have to worry about wearing the same thing twice, or every day, because the kind of people who say it’s a thin line between Carrie Bradshaw and Miss Havisham are the kind of people you don’t care about.

Divorce is very, very expensive (more so than getting married in many cases), so turning it into a marketing opportunity is comical. Obviously, that's me taking it literally — most people who are inspired by this trend are not, actually, going through a divorce. They just like the big floppy hats. And to them, I say, hands off my culture.

You don't get to call yourself a Hot Divorcée unless you're actually cashing out ISAs to pay your solicitor fees, manually splitting your book collection and regularly forgetting which of your names you signed up to things with.

A critical analysis of hot divorcée summer by a hot divorcée

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