What Happens Behind Closed Doors?

Today's speculation concern the high percentage of failure in the marriages of beautiful famous people. Or so it seems, I guess, partly because the failed marriages of famous beautiful people make the news (which is because they're famous, goes with the territory). Now I'm sure that I'm responding to this due to bias; certainly there are lots of marriages of beautiful people that don't fail. (Seems like the second or third or fourth marriage is more likely not to fail; either they learned something or they just can't afford another divorce.) There are marriages of famous people that don't fail either. But what I notice and find inexplicable -- so I'm going to theorize about why it happens -- is why the marriages of beautiful famous people do fail. Because they do. (I will also include unmarried long-term relationships in a couple of cases here, but they have a higher failure potential because the legal untanglement process is reduced.)

Some of the motivations for this assessment:

Tea Leoni and David Duchovny
Christie Brinkley and Peter Cook
Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford
Hugh Grant and Elizabeth Hurley
Diane Lane and Christopher Lambert
Fisher Stevens and Michelle Pfeiffer
Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon
Leonardo DiCaprio and Gisele Bundchen
Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid
Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey
Lynne Austin and Darren Daulton
Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt
Bruce Willis and Demi Moore
Heather Locklear and Richie Sambora
Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams
Heidi Klum and Flavio Briatore
Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger
Sophia Bush and Chad Michael Murray



(There, that ought to attract a few Google searches!) But seriously... serious physical beauty is a two-edged sword. It opens doors, gets attention (wanted and unwanted), creates opportunity (both deserved and undeserved). A truly beautiful person knows it because they're told it all the time. They can see it in the mirror, they can see how it affects other people. A truly beautiful person has power. And a truly beautiful person can develop an ego. Highly gifted athletes have the same problem; they get treated special, too special, they are given shortcuts and free passes and personal failings get overlooked because they are a commodity, a money maker, a product. (And they can be exploited, overexploited, and used. There is a downside. Think Michael Vick.)

There are beautiful people that work hard for everything they get, and gifted athletes that don't get perks and don't get in trouble. It's just that the problems shared by the top echelons of beauty and athleticism are similar: what they have is partly an advantage of youth, so as youth becomes maturity their power and/or skills diminish, and then they aren't so special. That can be a problem. Being treated special all the time creates a peculiar and unique mindset; people that are treated special all the time likely start to think that being treated special is a right, and not a privilege.

So let's get back to the subject of failed marriages (and relationships) of beautiful famous people. Put simply, if you're used to being treated special because you're beautiful, it's hard to be with someone who's supposed to treat you the most ultimately special (your spouse, significant other, love interest, etc.) and not get that special treatment you think you deserve, the special treatment you get and expect from so many others in your life sphere. Let's consider the male sexual ego (which is considerable) for a moment. Get married with all the expectations that entails to someone possessing abnormal pulchritude, and you might look forward to daily visual gratification, a procession of lingerie and nudity and loveliness at the breakfast table, at dinner, around the pool, in the shower, and of course, most of the imaginable sexual fillips that the young and nubile and beautiful are capable of. What if your phenomenally beautiful love interest takes to wearing baggy sweats and saggy jeans as their costume de rigeur? Not exactly treating you special, are they?

Hugh Grant and Elizabeth Hurley reportedly had an even-better-than-marriage commitment for years, until she showed up in The Ultimate Red Carpet Dress (suddenly bringing her fame up to a level with his) and he soon after was requesting a streewalker to hork his manhood in the back of a car. Why couldn't Elizabeth ingest the manly emissions of his passion? Was she not treating him special enough? David Duchovny has a sex addiction? I could have a sex addiction to Tea Leoni -- why wasn't her fabulousness enough for him?



Fisher Stevens and Michelle Pfeiffer; Fisher goes for a BABYSITTER instead of a YOUNG Miss Pfeiffer who reportedly was slavishly devoted to him? Peter Cook and another young babysitter, when he's with the ultimate MILF; well, admittedly a young nubile babysitter may have physical and appetudinal attributes that a gorgeous MILF can't match... and that brings us to the silverback "Alpha Male" syndrome, whereby an older famous beautiful male indulges the primal urge to fertilize the young and fertile. This explains Heidi Klum and Flavio, and how Flavio was already moving on once the fertilization of Heidi had been accomplished. I could go in another direction on the whole older rich famous beautiful male and the young fertilizable female phenomenon and its genetic heritage from our ancestral Australopithecines, but I won't, except to note that Kevin Costner's current wife is SO hot.

OK, so that's my bottom line. In a successful marriage (any successful marriage), both partners get treated special. And they know their partner wants to treat them special, and they like being treated special, and they treat special back. That covers a lot of ground, sex-wise and otherwise. For beautiful famous people, accustomed to an intense level of specialness, when you don't get that intensity of being-treated-special by the One who's supposed to treat you more special than anyone else, that smacks hard onto the ego that has been supported by the lucky attributes of remarkable beauty. And if you can't get that special level of treatment from the person that's supposed to be lavishing it on you, you know that your beauty should be able to garner -- without much difficulty -- someone else who will, at least for awhile. And that's what so many of these beautiful yet flawed people seem to be seeking -- to be treated the way that everyone says they should be treated by the one person that's supposed to treat them more special than anyone else. So, if they can't get it from one over time, why not a succession of ones over time (this explains Leonardo DiCaprio and George Clooney).

So while I wouldn't mind being a fly on the wall for a week in the Scarlet Johannson - Ryan Reynolds household, I don't envy them. I think it's going to be difficult. And good luck to Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake, too.

As an aside, there is also the issue of mismatch, both in looks, devotion and adoration. I was in love once -- deeply, madly, passionately -- with a lovely woman who attracted men like butterflies to a butterfly bush. She tolerated me; she even became a good friend. I tried to seal the deal numerous ways (romantically, not sexually), but I couldn't make her feel the same way about me that I felt about her. She moved on, had a couple of passionate marriages that failed before getting into one that succeeded. I managed to convince her to kiss me once -- deeply, madly, passionately -- and that taste convinced me of two things -- one, that bedding her would have been fabulous, and two, that if I had married her, I would have devoted my every day to her happiness. But in retrospect, such devotion probably would ultimately fail. I would have wanted her to be happy, and satisfied: if she wasn't as into me as I was into her, trying to satisfy might not have worked, and I would have probably worked harder, still fallen short, and ended up resenting her for not being able to satisfy her, just on the basis of the fact that I was me. So there's still a mystery there of marriages that are apparent mismatches, but which work. I think sometimes women can love men beyond reasons that are obvious.