Sophie Turner felt ‘trapped’ by early ‘Game of Thrones’ stardom, marriage to Joe Jonas and motherhood

Several days before Joe Jonas filed for divorce Tuesday, Sophie Turner was spotted downing shots at a pub in Birmingham, England, supporting the narrative that the 27-year-old English actor was eager to live out the carefree youth she never had because she became an international star at age 14, married singer Joe Jonas and began having children in her early 20s.

“Sophie feels like she’s only just waking up to what her life and reality really is,” a close friend told the Daily Mail about Turner, who shares two daughters, 3 and 1, with Jonas. “She became famous at a very young age, then married and had kids at a young age and never really had the teenage years of sleeping around and just having carefree fun with friends.”

“She feels like her life has stalled after ‘Game of Thrones’ and so has her personal life,” the friend continued. “Since the kids came along, she’s feeling trapped. She’s the only person in her tight friendship group who is married with two children.”

News broke Tuesday that Jonas, 34, had filed for divorce from Turner in Miami, after four years of marriage. In the divorce filing, Jonas said that their relationship was “irretrievably broken.” In a joint statement issued Wednesday, the estranged couple called their divorce “a united decision.” They have a prenuptial agreement in place that they both signed before their marriage in 2019, reports said.

Turner and her American husband started to have problems last Christmas, Turner’s friend said. The actor separated from him at the start of the summer and returned to the UK, while he was left in charge of caring for their two daughters in America. Jonas also joined his brothers, Nick and Kevin, in launching their “Five Albums. One Night” tour, while Turner spent time with school friends in England or vacationed with them elsewhere around Europe.

Turner also worked in the UK, filming the upcoming ITV crime drama “Joan,” which apparently explains why she was in the Dropshot Digbeth arcade bar in Birmingham, the Daily Mail and Page Six reported. Turner, dressed in a blue floral minidress, and other members of the cast and crew were enjoying a wrap party, the Daily Mail said.

The general manager of the bar shared photos and videos on Instagram Sunday of the “Game of Thrones” star, “knocking back” drinks, Page Six said.

“Just me and my new mate @sophiet out for a few bevvies – Soph stopped by my spot to test out my punch machine,” Hezron Stephenson captioned his post. “Said I made her the best #mojito ever so I’ll take that.”

Some reports said that Turner may have been partying too much in recent months, leaving Jonas distraught and painfully aware of their differences. “She likes to party; he likes to stay at home. They have very different lifestyles,” one insider told TMZ Tuesday.

In a final effort to save the marriage, Jonas brought their daughters to England to spend some time in their mother’s hometown, the Daily Mail said. But when that attempt failed, he and the girls returned to the United States.

Some of Turner’s supporters have looked skeptically at reports that Turner was off partying, while the supposedly more responsible Jonas was left to care for the children. They expressed concerned that Jonas’ team was spinning the idea that  Turner had been an “absentee mother” to give Jonas an advantage in a potential transatlantic custody battle. But in his divorce filing, Jonas said he was committed to “shared parental responsibility” once the divorce is finalized, Page Six said.

Turner’s friend confirmed to the Daily Mail that the actor wasn’t ready for the “more settled life” that Jonas apparently wants. “She’s not ready for that because she feels that she’s not even had a teen or young adult life,” the friend said.

Jonas also may have been pressuring Turner to have another baby. “Joe would like another kid, he’s a real family man,” the friend said. “But while Sophie’s been in the UK, she’s also realized just how much she misses this country; it’s the final nail in the coffin for them.”

Turner grew up in the UK’s Midlands, near Birmingham, where she had a happy childhood and where she attended prep school and acted in local theater. When she was 13, she landed the role of Sansa Stark in the blockbuster HBO series “Game of Thrones” in 2009. The next eight years of her life — her precious teen years — were consumed with working on “Game of Thrones” and taking advantage of other film and TV opportunities that came her way because of the show’s success, including starring as the mutant Jean Grey in the “X-Men” series.

Turner was 20 when she began dating the Jonas Brothers frontman in 2016. They married in a lavish wedding in France in 2019 and began having children right away, with their first daughter arriving just a year into their marriage.

In a 2019 interview on “The Graham Norton Show,” Turner said she felt as though she missed out on the typical British university life after working on j”Game of Thrones” instead, the Daily Mail reported.

She said: “I wish I’d had the university experience. I wish I could have gone out and drunk a lot and thrown up in the middle of a club without it being photographed.”