Was Pearline Really Married? ‘Sinners’ Fans Can’t Fathom Her Being an Unapologetic Cheater

Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers for Sinners, in case you're one of the two people who haven't it yet.

You know those movies that are so good, you end up discussing it long after you've seen it for the first time? Well, Sinners is certainly one of those special films. When the Ryan Coogler-directed horror film debuted in April 2025 and was instantly projected to be a cult classic. Sinners undoubtedly sparked important conversations about race during in the South during the 1940s in a unique way, using music, blood, and vampires to tell the chilling story.

Many of the characters also created discourse through their decisions. Moviegoers wrote think pieces about the themes twins Smoke and Stack, played by Michael B. Jordan, represented. There were also tons of chatter around Sammie Moore (Miles Caton), a sharecropper and son of a preacher whose musical dreams become a supernatural chain reaction in the film.

Throughout the film, Sammie makes several life-changing decisions that ultimately results in him being the only surviving member of a vampire killing spree. One of the more enticing decisions he made was courting and bedding a woman named Pearline, played by Jayme Lawson.

Pearline's instant attraction for Sammie was met with some hesitation, considering she was a married woman. However, as Sinners conspiracy theorists looked closer into the film, some have questioned if Pearline was ever really married.

Let's dive into the speculation.

The debate about whether Pearline was really married on Sinners has circulated on social media every so often. However, the discourse took a life of its own as horror fans began watching the movie again in time for Halloween 2025. On Oct. 25, 2025, an X (formerly Twitter) user named @mommabiia posted a thread with a GIF of Pearline sliding across the stage at Smoke and Stack's juke joint. The user then captioned the post with a nod to Pearline openly having an affair in the film.

"Pearline- My favorite cheater of all time," the user said in response to another thread requesting followers to, "Show me someone that looks good in a movie."

The X user's post reignited claims that Pearline could've been lying about being married. Although she told Sammie directly that she was married when they first met, to which he slyly replied, "Happily?" some fans still didn't believe she was really married.

In a June 2025 Reddit thread, one user noted that Pearline could've been lying to Sammie about being married because she wasn't initially interested in him. The user added many women have done this in real life to get rid of unwanted male attention.

"I’m watching this for the fourth time and I’m not 100 percent sure," the fan wrote in the thread. "She definitely might have been, but a young married woman in that time period would probably have had a hard time getting away alone at night to walk to a club and party regardless, but especially if she had a husband at home."

"It’s not uncommon for us ladies, even now, to invent a bf or a husband to keep a man at a distance -often for our safety but sometimes just because we don’t want to get into something and it’s easier to say we’re taken than explain that," they added.

The Reddit user also suggested Pearline's husband could've been at war, which would mean she was technically married but mostly spent her days alone. However, as the X user pointed out, Pearline's wedding ring showed up multiple times in the movie. Jayme Lawson herself has also confirmed her character was a married woman.

Jayme has shared that, not only was Pearline married on Sinners, her feelings about her marriage inspired how she portrayed the complex character. According to her interview during a Sinners panel conversation with stars Miles, Hailee Steinfeld, and Wunmi Mosaku, she tapped into Pearline's desire for a new life when she performed her iconic dance performance scene.

"I was think I was trying to figure out well who is Pearline as the performer," Jayme said at the 17-minute mark of the interview. "What does it mean for this repressed woman who's young but is married this old man that she don't want to she that has this other life, right, to want to escape to? What does she how does she come alive? And I remember seeing that scarf around my neck and I just remember tugging at it and and seeing how it draped off and then twirling it in the and I was like, 'um, Oh, there's Pearl.'"

Although there was plenty of evidence leaning towards Pearline being married, it's interesting to see how many people couldn't fathom that being her reality.