The women's already spent her career laying bare the breathtaking heights and crushing lows of love. More recently, the singer/poet's been on tour promoting her third album, "The Real Thing: Words and Sounds, Volume 3" — which she began just as her 13-year-marriage ended — along with her heart-wrenching role in Tyler Perry's new movie, "Why Did I Get Married."

"That's what I do," she tells the Associated Press. "I share the light and the dark and everything in between."

To pull off her role as an emotionally afflicted wife in Perry's new film, Scott referred to her own failed marriage. "That was her stuff coming out," Perry says of Scott's performance. "She brought everything that she had experienced in life to that role."

What position does this Nobel Prize winner take on her ex? "He's a good person," Scott says of Lyzell Williams." He's very kindhearted in a lot of ways, and he should never be vilified by anyone because they didn't live in our house."

But, in her work and her personal life, Scott says she's now free to grow and get back in touch with the real Jill Scott. "I've stepped more into my original me than I have been in a long time — just coming from underwater," she says. "I didn't even know I wasn't breathing, but I'm breathing again."

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Imagine Macy's doing a fall ad campaign based on broken marriages. Never, you say?

Well, that's exactly what Debenhams, the British department store chain, is doing with the "Separated and Successful" Club — a 21st Century First Wives Club of well-known women, carrying the message that any hardship can be overcome with confidence, a steadfast support system, and a spankin' new wardrobe.

The SAS Club is made up of some famous British ladies who've
conquered divorce — and looked fabulous doing it — like TV personalities Coleen Nolan and Trisha Goddard, along with author and journalist Bel Mooney, and divorce coach Kirsten Gronning.

It wasn't until her break from actor Shane Ritchie — and an endorsement deal with Debenhams — that Nolan truly discovered the rejuvenating power of shopping.

"It's really hard getting over divorce, especially when a partner has been unfaithful, as this can really knock your confidence — you think that other men won't fancy you," she says. "A new hair cut and a couple of glam outfits is a real confidence booster that will set you on the right
track."

So, on one hand you have a retailer trying to sell some "glam outfits." But, on the other you have a big name brand — in the U.K., at least — using the issue of divorce to convey a message of strength and the potential for positive change. Pretty impressive.

Maybe not as impressive as the Dove brand spending tens of millions of dollars stateside to promote a broader definition of beauty for women of all shapes, sizes, and generations. But, we'd say it's just as groundbreaking and just as ballsy.

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Here’s another story that shows things aren’t always so rosy in religious families. We’ve written a couple of times about the mis-matched ministers, Juanita Bynum and Thomas Weeks.

Well, here’s a story out of Alabama about a pastor whose wife walked out on him and their two kids six months ago. Actually, according to a report in the Mobile Press-Register, Beth Smith is still seeing her children on a regular basis, and sources say she is a good mother.

But in March, she hocked her wedding ring while attending a religious convention in Louisiana and bought a bus ticket to New York without telling her family anything. To say the least, details like that make her sound unstable. She was living in a women’s shelter in New York when authorities finally located her in July and brought her back to Alabama.

Her husband, Rev. Jason Lee Smith, has filed for divorce and it seeking custody of the kids, who are 10 and 7. Beth Smith’s attorney said there was conflict in the marriage and that the couple had grown apart. And he talked about the toll that keeping up appearances can take when you’re married to a religious leader. Indeed, if you start to question the life you’re living, that’s a difficult place to be. But walking out on your family? She’s going to have a tough time explaining that away.

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Yep, Britney Spears — America's candy-coated sweetheart — has hit an (old) Elvis low at the tender age of 26. And to that we say? Super!

The girl was clearly engaged in a dogged day-to-day media campaign to ruin any credibility she had left with fans, family, friends, and, most important of all, her destiny-deciding judge. Her part conscious/part unconscious young woman on-the-verge display was a painfully off-key, glaringly obvious cry for help.

Any why not? The marriage is toast, the career is in the later stages of decomposition, Britney's brain — judging by all outward appearances — is cooked. And now, Commissioner Scott Gordon has ordered Britney to surrender her two sons, ages one and two, to ex-husband and consummate father-figure, Kevin "Pass that Shit" Federline.

With this latest development, we are now firmly encamped with that kid under the yellow bed sheets on YouTube. Enough! Leave Britney alone!

Get the girl some help and let this be the end of her nightmare, because the next stage in this highly-illogical man-made disaster follows far too closely on the red stiletto heels of Marilyn Monroe.

We know you’ve all been waiting for the latest in the saga of Juanita Bynum and Thomas Weeks, the dueling evangelical ministers.

Bynum had filed for divorce from Weeks after he allegedly assaulted her in August, and she also has a restraining order against him. But there’s apparently nothing restraining her from turning her divorce into a career-boosting opportunity.

Bynum, who is a singer and televangelist, has been on the front page of the New York Times and made radio and TV appearances, including one on Good Morning America. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says she has declared herself the face of domestic violence. Now, there can never be an over-abundance of discussion on that important topic. But with any public figure, especially one who makes his or her living on TV, you have to question the motives when they go public with their personal stories.

But it’s tough to question a domestic abuse survivor. For now, let’s give her the benefit of the doubt. If he beat her and she wants to talk about it to keep it from happening to other women, that’s a good thing. I think we’ll be able to tell if she’s just using it to forward her career.

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Take our favorite kvetcher, Larry David, who friends insist has never been happier. His wife, environmental crusader Laurie, left him this summer — after 14 years of marriage — for the contractor who worked on the couple's Martha's Vineyard estate.

"Since she left, he is a different man," sources tell The New York Post. "He is so happy. It's like a weight has been lifted off of his shoulders."

It must be the weight of saving the world. After all, Laurie's impassioned activism inspired her to produce Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." As anyone will tell you, misanthropy and philanthropy just don't mix.

Still, the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" star has his grumpy image to uphold. "I defy anyone to produce any evidence that the word happy has ever crossed my lips," he tells The Post. "I am not now, nor have I ever been, ‘happy.'" We know, Larry. We know.

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Okay, let’s dig into these Census Bureau divorce statistics a little more before I get all numbered out for one weekend.

The New York Times ran an interesting piece on Thursday with one particular number that has received a lot of play in the press and here at FWW: More than half of all marriages don’t make it to 25 years.

Now, there are a ton of statistics in the story worth mentioning. I think it’s interesting to trace the numbers of marriages over the years that have lasted 25 years. If you got married in the 1950s, you might as well have been Ward and June Cleaver. You had a 70 percent chance of celebrating a silver anniversary, and an 80 percent chance of at least getting to 15 years.

But the number that jumped out at me was buried at the bottom of the story, most likely because it’s a stat that was initially reported earlier this year. But it’s still really significant: Just over 50 percent of women in the U.S. don’t have a husband. They’re either divorced, separated or have never been married. That says something about the divorce rate, of course. But it seems to me it also says something about women living independent lives. And I think that’s good.

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There was an interesting piece yesterday in the Hartford Courant about classes aimed at couples who are remarrying.

The gist is that most divorced people — even the ones who might have participated in marriage-preparation counseling the first time around — don't avail themselves of that help as they head into a second marriage. Since remarriages end in divorce at a higher rate than first marriages, it seems like second marriage classes might be a good idea.

The story does a good job of pointing out the fact that many divorced people consider themselves "experienced" — they don't expect to fall into the same traps as their first marriages because they've "been there and done that." The problem is, though, that most divorced people probably don't know much about what it takes to have a successful marriage. Sure, there's that segment of jilted partners who had their happy home-life destroyed by a cheating spouse, but for most of us, the road to divorce was a two-way street. Sitting down to talk with someone about the issues unique to remarriages sounds like a good idea.

The problem I have with the concept is that it seems like most classes are happening within churches. If you're not religious, or if you're opposed to pre-marriage counseling from that perspective, you don't seem to have many options.

Perhaps there's an untapped niche for the marriage counseling market here: Secular second-marriage counseling. I question how much benefit someone who doesn't know you or your soon-to-be spouse can provide by meeting with you a few times. If it's geared specifically toward second-marriages, without religious dogma attached, it might just be worthwhile.

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The latest jab in the high-profile split comes from a so-called pal of the anchorwoman who says it was Cohen's cold sexless ways that alienated Zahn. "She and Richard weren't having sex for some time," the friend "confided" to the [New York] Daily News.

Friends of the real estate developer, meanwhile, are pointing to Zahn's sex diary, which Cohen himself discovered, that paints in "lurid" detail his wife's affair with Fribourg, who's been a friend of the couple. Reportedly, the Fribourgs, Zahn and Cohen vacationed and socialized together. "Richard felt like he'd been stabbed in the heart twice when he found out his wife had been cheating with one of his best friends," one of Cohen's buddies tells the News.

According to Cohen's friend, Zahn's claims of a sexless marriage are designed to "undermine their prenup." Last week, Zahn filed suit in Manhattan Supreme Court alleging Cohen mismanaged the $25 million she invested with him. Zahn also claims Cohen is trying to gain "some sort of tactical advantage" by withholding financial information from her.

Neither Cohen, 59, nor Zahn, 51, has filed for divorce, but Zahn has already left the Fifth Ave. co-op the two once shared with their three children--daughter Haley, 17, and sons Jared, 13, and Austin, 10. Fribourg and his estranged wife Josabeth are in the middle of a divorce. Zahn and Fribourg's affair allegedly began a year ago.

And to make matters worse, since the ex-CNN anchor's husband discovered the journal with their 17-year-old daughter, he's been sharing some of its spicier bits with people around town, sources tell the News. Zahn announced she was divorcing Cohen, a multi-millionaire, in April. The couple have two minor kids.

Last Friday, Zahn filed a 60-page suit in Manhattan Supreme Court requesting a forensic accounting of some $25 million that she had entrusted to Cohen. He has reportedly refused to address issues of child custody and visitation "unless she signs away her right to an accounting," source tell the News. "He won't budge. He's so bitter."

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