Amid their ongoing legal battle, new court documents indicate that Joe Jonas was enthusiastic about permanently relocating to the UK with Sophie Turner and their children just three months before he filed for divorce.
For context, Joe’s apparent desire for a future in England comes as an important development in his and Sophie’s divorce, as it pertains to the custody of their two daughters, 3-year-old Willa and 1-year-old Delphine.
After Joe filed for divorce on Sept. 5, Sophie accused him of wrongfully preventing their children from leaving the US to return to their “habitual residence” in England.
The lawsuit — which was filed on Sept. 21 — alleges that while Sophie started filming a new TV series in the UK in May, she agreed “with hesitation” for their daughters to temporarily travel with Joe and his extended family on the Jonas Brothers tour.
Prior to this agreement, Joe and Sophie — who were previously based in Miami — had allegedly agreed in late 2022 to make England their “forever home.”
According to Page Six, the filing states that Joe and Sophie had been officially based in the UK since April 10, and that their daughter Willa was enrolled full-time in a nursery school there.
Sophie also alleges in the documents that many of their belongings had already been “shipped” to the UK and that they were both “excited” to settle down permanently as they entered into contracts to purchase a home in July.
So, when her filming commitments in the UK were done in mid-September, Sophie and Joe had allegedly agreed that she’d come to New York to collect the girls and return them to England.
However, when it came time to do this, Sophie claims in her lawsuit that from Sept. 20, Joe stopped her from following through with their alleged plan by withholding their daughters’ passports and preventing them from leaving the country.
For his part, Joe has disputed the allegations in a statement provided to TMZ. On his behalf, his representatives claimed that the day after he filed for divorce, Sophie was served with a court order restricting either of them from relocating the children.
The reps allege that on Sept. 17, Joe and Sophie had a “cordial meeting” in New York where they “reached an understanding that they would work together toward an amicable coparenting setup.”
They claim that it was less than 24 hours after this that Sophie “advised that she wanted to take the children permanently to the UK.”
In the statement, Joe’s rep also states that he “is seeking shared parenting with the kids so that they are raised by both their mother and father,” and is “also okay with the kids being raised both in the US and the UK.”
They go on to emphasize that the children were born in America, have apparently spent the “vast majority” of their lives there, and therefore he believes they are American citizens.
“Sophie is making this claim only to move the divorce proceedings to the UK and to remove the children from the U.S. permanently,” the statement alleges.
Now, in what comes as a new development in the ongoing legal dispute between the exes, court documents have revealed that Joe penned a letter to the owners of a property in England, expressing that he and Sophie hoped to make it their “permanent home.”
In the letter dated June 16, which was obtained by Page Six, Joe attempted to persuade the homeowners to sell their property in Oxford, making mention of his desire to raise their children there.
“When my wife and I decided we were going to spend more time in the UK and search for a permanent home, our daughter expressed three unwavering requirements: having chickens, a pony and a Wendy house,” he apparently wrote.
“While many of the houses we viewed met this criteria, the moment we turned the corner and caught sight of the charming blue shutters adorning [redacted], we experienced a sense of magic unlike anything we had felt before,” he wrote of the £7.5 million estate.
In the letter, Joe fantasized about a future in England, writing that he was “completely charmed by the idea of dropping my children to school on the boat and being able to spend a leisurely afternoon cruising to the pub with friends on my very own boat.”
He also used similar wording to Sophie’s subsequent lawsuit, in which she described the UK as their “forever home.”
“We could tell that your family have truly loved living here and we can envision our children growing up here and making this our forever home,” the letter apparently concludes. “I really think Sophie and I will be able to look after [redacted names] and for many years pay homage to the magic you have created here.”
Less than a month after he wrote this letter, the sellers of the property accepted their offer, prompting Joe and Sophie to put down a deposit on the home on July 7, Page Six reports.
Around this time, court documents state that Joe apparently sent a text message to a member of Sophie’s family that read: “Well, Sophie and I officially own a home in the UK.”
Despite his seeming excitement, the legal docs indicate that the sale of the house is set to be finalized in December this year. An insider told Page Six recently that the property is in escrow and the major sale was never closed.
As Joe and Sophie’s legal dispute plays out in the US, their daughters are temporarily restricted from leaving the southern and eastern districts of New York, per the terms of an interim consent order filed last week.
According to People, the former couple agreed to this, and right now it seems they are both situated in NYC, with Sophie apparently loaning a property from her friend, Taylor Swift.
Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/ellendurney/joe-jonas-uk-forever-home-before-sophie-turner-divorce