Not that there are hoards of handsome, alluring male celebrities banging down my door but I got to asking myself this very question the other day after coming across the above picture of Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes. Perhaps I have been living under a rock but it was news to me that they even were a couple! Oh look, another beautiful, smitten celebrity couple I thought – SNORE!!! Ryva – yet another couple to add to the long list of Brangelina’s, Tomkat’s, Kimye’s and Bennifer’s. Why don’t these celebrities go for a regular Joe soap or Jane soap type, you know a normal civilian like yourself or myself? We’re not that bad are we?
I deliberated some more and found myself asking: “But would I really date a celebrity?” Initially I thought yes, YES of course! YES! I could help them spend all their money and hang out on their luxurious yacht singing the “I’m on a mother f’in boat” song and be all hilarious and famous and dripping in diamonds! I could get in to VIP parties, buy designer clothes, have a personal trainer and a chef and a six pack and maybe even get a sneaky cameo role in a film….
Then the crafty hamster in the logical side of my brain awoke from his slumber and began to spin his little wheel of reality! No, I thought, NO! I couldn’t date a celebrity! NO! My favourite celebrity, Leonardo Di Caprio sprang to mind and I remembered instantly that he’s reputably involved in all that saving the planet and endangered animals stuff. I’d have to hide all those photographs of me happily posing and laughing beside animals in captivity at the zoo, circus, aquarium and especially from that time in the pet shop.
What if I had to look up stuff about endangered animals and act all knowledgeable and intense and empathetic when he mentioned them? What if I had to agree that instead of going on a regular, sun holiday we should go on a whale saving tour of the North Atlantic when all I’d be thinking is: “I WANNA GET ON YOUR BOAT AND SING THE “I’M ON A MOTHER F’IN BOAT SONG!” It’s not that I’m against saving the world and I do love animals but I just don’t want to have to do it ALL THE TIME! One day I’d finally admit to him that I was just too lazy to save the animals today and he’d be all disgusted and say something like: “I can’t believe you don’t want to save the endangered dolphins off the coast of Japan with me, you heartless witch!” I’d feel really bad then and probably dress up as a dolphin in a bid to cheer him up and apologise but he’d probably not find it funny and instead dump me for making light of and impersonating an endangered species.
Dating a celebrity could transform you in to a celebrity overnight! This happened to Liz Hurley after she accompanied Hugh Grant to the premiere of Four Weddings and a Funeral in 1994 wearing a plunging Versace gown that was held together by several oversized safety pins. The dress is perhaps Versace’s best-known creation and is considered to be largely responsible for launching Hurley onto the global media stage and for making the Versace fashion brand a household name.
Imagine becoming internationally recognisable overnight?! Could you handle the pressures of the paparazzi? Who would want those pesky photographers taking photos of you all day? Pictures of your hung-over trip to the chipper in your ugly Penneys tracksuit bottoms that recently shrunk in the wash and now skim your ankles could be splashed all over the front page of a newspaper. You’d be afraid to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without make up on!
What if your new famous boyfriend’s ex-girlfriends were 6ft tall, stunning super-models and the media then referred to you as “The 5ft 5’ Trailer Trash Troll who bagged herself some Tinseltown Totty”. (Mind you, that does have a nice ring to it!) I don’t think I could handle the invasiveness!!!
Also when you’re famous, you can’t go through the usual break up routine of getting sloshed in your local before crying outside the nearest chip van in to a chicken burger as your friends dance around you and sing, “It must have been love but it’s over now” in a bid to help you cry it all out!
You’d have to stop picking your nose as you drive or fixing your undergarments if you’re out for a walk. You’d definitely have to wear sunglasses all the time because that’s just what famous people do, believing that they make them slightly invisible. I always end up sitting on my sunglasses and breaking them or losing them. I’d never cope!
Imagine your friends all decided to betray you and make money by selling your embarrassing stories to the newspapers like that time you fell asleep in the toilets of the local night club or wet yourself in Primary School during P.E class because you were in goals and no one would swop with you because everyone hated being in goals and you were crap outfield. Even worse, what if some weirdo who you’d never even seen before came out and spoke about their one night, passionate fling with you, IN DETAIL?!
What if your new beau was one of those celebrities who was all in to those silly exercise things like Pilates or Thai Chi and you had to attend classes with him and feel all in touch with your inner chi. I’m pretty sure the only inner chi I possess has a “p” at the end of it to spell out a not so good for you, favourite dish! What if he was in to one of those made up religions like Scientology or Kabbalah? You wouldn’t be able to take him to Christmas mass with your family as he’d be at home finding his inner chi and chanting or meditating.
I don’t think I would like to be in such an unequal monetary relationship either. You’d take him to his favourite restaurant for dinner and head to the counter to pay the bill only to realise that the meal is the price of a small plot of land. Window-escape route necessary!
O.k. perhaps I am marginally overthinking and concentrating too much on the negative consequences of dating a celebrity. As depicted in the film Notting Hill, sometimes a relationship between a celebrity and a non-celebrity can work. Let’s look at some real life examples to test the theory further.
Matt Damon met his wife Luciana, a former bartender in Miami Beach while he was filming the comedy Stuck on You in 2003. Matt reportedly said this about their fateful meeting: “I had never really hung out in Miami and one night in the middle of the shoot, the crew, a couple guys, said, ‘We’re going to get a beer somewhere.’ I said, ‘I’m not really into it.’ They said, ‘Come on,’ and kind of dragged me along. We ended up at a bar where my wife was the bartender. I literally saw her across a crowded room…and eight years and four kids later, that’s my life. I don’t know how else our paths would have crossed if that didn’t happen…The moral is that when you’re tired, suck it up and go to the bar because you might meet your wife,” advises Matt. ( I don’t know if that’s really sound advice. I’m probably going to die of liver failure from alcoholism because I won’t be able to say no to a night out for fear of missing the opportunity to meet a husband!)
Nicolas Cage met his wife Alice Kim when she was a waitress at a Los Angeles Sushi bar. She served him his dinner that night and went on to give birth to his son in 2005. They married at a private ranch in Northern California in July 2004.
Julia Roberts and her husband, cameraman Daniel Moder, met on the set of her film The Mexican in 2000, while she was still dating Benjamin Bratt. At the time, Moder was married to Vera Steimberg. He filed for divorce a little over a year later, and after it was finalized, he and Roberts wed on July 4, 2002, at her ranch in Taos, New Mexico. They have three children together.
Cynthia Nixon and New York state education activist Christine Marinoni met in 2004 and married in May 27, 2012. They are now living happily ever after in Brooklyn.
Being famous must be such a crazy, whirlwind phenomenon. It’s no wonder that the majority of celebrities end up dating other celebrities as perhaps it is only another celebrity who can truly understand what you are going through and appreciate the very public life you lead. The above examples prove however that a celebrity-civilian relationship really can work with the mentioned wives not having to sacrifice a huge deal of their privacy and seeming able to lead a relatively normal life. I take it back Leo…..call me!
Diddy x
Image Source: www.dailymail.co.uk, www.celebritybabyscoop.com, www.hollywoodaccessin.blogspot.ie, www.people.com, www.zimbio.com.
Yes, Matthew McConaughey! Oh, Camila Alves already took him off the singles market! Congratulations you two, Many, many year of blessings!