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Since their divorce, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore have remained close friends.

Posted August 6, 2008 by Audrey Turcot and Tommi Lewis Tilden

Christie Brinkley and Peter Cook's ugly divorce drama unraveled so publicly because the Uptown Girl insisted on keeping the court hearings open. Reason? She wanted her estranged architect husband to be held accountable for all the unsavory things he did while they were married -- like having a fling with his then-18-year-old assistant.

While interesting in a train wreck kind of way, this public trial could not have been good news for their kids Jack, 12 and Sailor, 9, since accusations included their dad's proclivity for internet porn. But Brinkley's lawyer defended the move, "The reality is he [Cook] put himself way in front of his children and his wife when he made the awful decision to destroy the marriage."

Now that we see, first-hand, how not to conduct a celebrity divorce, what's a good way?

Surely the gold standard for star splits is Bruce Willis vs. Demi Moore. Not only did the couple take post-divorce family vacations while Bruce lived nearby their Idaho digs, the love fest continued even after Demi married Ashton Kutcher. Recently, Demi invited her 53-year-old ex and his new gf Emma Heming (age 27, gulp) to the premiere of her latest flick, Flawless, and it was all one happy, smiling family photo op.

Although Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe at first seemed destined for tabloid hell, the couple bounced back to civility and kept life for kids Ava and Deacon peaceful. Even after both stars claimed the divorce was personally traumatic yet were spotted together at their daughter's school play and neither has trash-talked the other to the media.

One single mom who knows full well how hard divorce can be on the kids is Kate Hudson. Her parents, Goldie Hawn and Bill Hudson, split when she was born and she grew up knowing her mom's partner, Kurt Russell as her "real dad."

Hudson, who's recently ended her  hot and heavy fling with Lance Armstrong, saw her divorce from her rocker ex-hubby, Chris Robinson become final in October of 2007 after almost seven years of marriage. The 29-year-old actress recently told Vogue that because of the strained relationship between her parents and with her dad, she and Robinson work hard to keep things more than civil.

"I grew up with a step dad and I had a very different process with my father which was very not fun at times, so I know [how it is], and I would die trying to make sure that is never where Ryder is.  And we've got one happy boy so we're doing something right."

Keeping it about the kids is one reason Valerie Bertinelli and Eddie Van Halen's divorce was labeled "amicable." "You have to love your children more than you hate your ex," Bertinelli told "Extra" about making their son Wolfgang's happiness a priority. "It's that simple."

But not all splits are quite as smooth as Bruce Willis' bald head.

"After witnessing my parents' divorce, the last thing I wanted was a divorce in my own marriage," Ethan Hawke told AP about his breakup from Uma Thurman some four years ago. 

The actor, who's reportedly readying to marry Ryan Shawhughes -- his very pregnant girlfriend who also used to be his and Uma's nanny(!), echoes the sentiment of many people -- famous and not -- who find themselves dealing with an irreconcilable marriage.

Thurman, who just announced her engagement to financeer Arpad Busson, told Redbook magazine, "With divorce, you are one person before and you have to figure out how to be another person after." 

Unlike her ex, Thurman's parents never split. "It's interesting -- my parents, for better or worse, stayed together. So I entered single parenthood without a lot of references. Everything took me by such super surprise. Before, [while married], I felt like I was a single parent because I was on my own a lot, but I was really wrong. There is a world of difference between parenting alone, but with a person who cares about you and your children, and never having anyone around to turn to and say ‘Oh, look what [our kid] did!'" she says about Maya, 10, and Levon, 6.

Newlywed (for the fourth time) Charlie Sheen and his bitter ex-cum-reality-star, Denise Richards, could surely use a page from Demi and Bruce's parenting guide. 

Things have gotten so acrimonious between the two that they sink to new levels of denigrating each other on a daily basis.

"The gloves are off," Denise said in TV Guide. "When I keep my mouth shut, [Charlie] continues to fuel [the feud] anyway, so I'm not gonna sit back anymore."

Let's just be grateful that the girls, Sam and Lola, ages 4 and 3, can't read yet.

What say you? Do you believe stars should use the media or open court, as a divorce battleground to get at the truth? Or should they do everything possible to keep their divorce private to protect the kids?