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I laughed when Sanaa Lathan was accused of getting in between Denzel and his beloved Paula. I laughed harder when the tabloids accused Rihanna of coming between Queen B and Jay-Z; and I laughed even harder when Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston ended their ten year marriage shortly after the filming of Mr. and Mrs. Smith

And, just to be clear, my laughter was only in reaction to the media’s excitement about the aforementioned scandals, whether alleged or proven, as I never found (and will never find) anything comedic divorce and infidelity. But, in lieu of the recent drama surrounding the alleged love triangle between Alicia Keys, Swizz Beats, and Swizz’ wife Mashonda, and the following comment by a close friend of Mashonda as told to MediaTakeOut.com:

“Alicia is a home wrecker who has truly wrecked a very intact black home, destroyed a family for no reason but her own personal satisfaction, [and] contributed to another young black man growing up through a broken home [while] seeing the disrespect one black woman has for another.”

I feel obligated to say a few words, sans laughter or anything that resembles it, about the term “home-wrecker,” which has found a very comfortable place in the English vocabulary, and it’s illegitimacy. Yes, illegitimacy.

How many more times will we accuse a woman of destroying a happy home before we accept the fact that a woman with the power to overturn a stable marriage doesn’t exist?

“Home-wrecker” is nothing more than a term used to remove all responsibility from from the man and woman who are growing apart. In other words, instead of a husband and wife, to be most extreme, owning up to the fact that they aren’t doing all that it takes to keep their marriage intact at the moment temptation comes-a-knockin’, owning up to the fact that they have simply fallen out of love, or owning up to the fact that they were never in love to being with, they blame the temptation. They blame the “home-wrecker.”

Please, let’s discontinue to insult the intelligence of those around us, and put Blame where Blame belongs. I propose that “home-wrecker” ultimately be removed entirely from our day-to-day, but for now, since the word seems to be going nowhere fast, why not use the term in reference to what really can jeopardize a relationship: workaholism, negligence, miscommunication, dishonesty, PS3, and the like.

For 2024’s iteration of MadameNoire and HelloBeautiful’s annual series Women to Know, we knew we wanted to celebrate the people who help make the joys of film and television possible. To create art is to create magic. This year, we spotlight Hollywood Executive’s changing the face of cinema.