Adam Levine is at the centre of claims he cheated on his pregnant wife Behati Prinsloo with Instagram model Sumner Stroh – and unsurprisingly, many social media users are blaming the "other women."
On 19 September, Sumner shared a now-viral TikTok video in which she claimed she had an affair with the 43-year-old Maroon 5 star. She expressed that she was forced to come forward with her story after sending screenshots of her interactions with Adam to a friend she thought she trusted at the time, who attempted to sell her story to a tabloid.
"Essentially, I was having an affair with a man who's married to a Victoria's Secret model," Sumner said. "At the time, I was young, I was naïve, and quite frankly, I feel exploited. I wasn't in the scene like I am now, so I was definitely easily manipulated."
She's teaching a master class in the post-divorce glow-up. And we should all be taking notes.
Sumner added: “In retrospect, I wish I would've questioned things more. I wish I wasn't so naïve, but being naïve is not an excuse for what I did and the role I played in this. Again, in no way was I trying to gain sympathy, and I fully realise I'm not the victim in this. I'm not the one who's really getting hurt here, it's Behati and her children, and for that, I'm so so sorry.”
Soon after her allegations came to light, Adam Levine shared a lengthy statement on his Instagram Story in which he admitted that he "crossed the line" and "used poor judgment" but denied having an affair.
Cue the people of the internet coming forward with their hot takes on the situation, which included, yes, you guessed it – placing the majority of the blame on Sumner instead of criticising Adam for his actions.
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In particular, actress Sara Foster shared a video on TikTok in which she said: "He's [Adam] obviously a total pig, and gross, but this woman who chose to make a viral TikTok video... not even apologising, but putting it out for the world to see, for a pregnant woman to see when she could have just messaged her privately... claiming its not her fault or something.
"It's like we don't feel sorry for you, you knew this man was married, and you participated, you could have easily ignored the messages, you knew he was married, we do not feel sorry for you. As women, we need to do better. The married man is being a pig and reaching out to you. You hopefully have been raised well enough to be like, 'no, sorry you're married, I can't engage'. This chick is giving women a very bad name," she concluded.
Sara's response to the cheating scandal raised eyebrows, including that of model Emily Ratajkowski, who separated from her husband Sebastian Bear-McClard earlier this summer following rumours of alleged infidelity.
The model and Gone Girl actress used her TikTok platform to expertly call out the "sexist" view, stating: "I think a huge problem in our culture right now is that we just say, 'oh men are just monsters, they're terrible, they're horrible'. We don't hold them accountable, and then we blame other women, we ask women to adjust their behaviour, instead of just saying men need to change their behaviour, it's sexism, it's classic misogyny."
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She added. "I don't understand why we continue to blame women for men's mistakes, especially when you're talking about 20-something-year-old women dealing with men in positions of power who are twice their age. Also, if you're the one in a relationship, you're the one obligated to be loyal, so the whole other woman to blame, that's bad, and it's literally designed to keep women apart."
Emily wasn't the only celebrity who reminded social media users that the issue didn't stem from Sumner's actions but from Adam's behaviour. Selling Sunset star Chrishell Stause brilliantly called out the singer for his statement – and we couldn't agree more.
"When apologising for cheating publicly, I hate the – we will get through it together part from a man. Don't speak for her. You've done enough," she tweeted.
Chrishell raised a good point, but a quick look at the divisive responses to her tweet shows that we have a long way to go in holding men accountable for their cheating.
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"I love when it comes to cheating it's straight to "it was the man who cheated". Women are just as bad as men. Yet when it comes to this topic, it's straight to it was the man who was in the wrong," one person wrote, while another added: "I hate that this girl has done this for publicity… flat out that's what she's done. He's no angel, but trying to build your empire by taking down a woman, wife and mother… shameful."
Keep scrolling, and there are plenty more tweets placing blame on Sumner. Tweets focusing solely on the damaging actions of Adam are far and few between.
While we may never truly know what really happened between Adam and Sumner, we can certainly admire (and engage in) EmRata and Chrishell's critiques of how we respond to cheating scandals.
