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The wages of beauty are loneliness

Marianne Macdonald

Wednesday, 30th January 2008

Marianne Macdonald says that the crazy bounty nature bestows on gorgeous women can be a curse: a recipe for low confidence and solitary distrust

But mightn’t it be nice to live with someone, I asked, to come home and there’s a light on? (I will state here the unwritten rule that female celebrities, no matter how stunning or famous, will unbend and become normal the minute you start comparing notes on being single). ‘Absolutely, but I leave one little light on,’ she agreed, and then gave a small embarrassed laugh at herself — ‘the sad reality of it!’

All the women maintained they couldn’t get any man they wanted. Béart laughed at the very idea. ‘No, unfortunately! It’s much more complicated than that! I think that’s what makes love, or relationships, interesting. It’s an affinity between two people, even a moment of grace.’ Christensen was equally definite. ‘Oh my God no! I’ve had guys I’ve been into that have never even looked my way. Absolutely!’ But, I asked, did they know she was into them? She laughed. ‘I think sometimes I can be very obvious about that!’ JLo, like Christensen, had a hunter’s approach. ‘I’ve been known to — not hit on a guy, but let people know I like them,’ she admitted in her beautiful, feminine voice. ‘If I do. But that’s rare. I’m so picky. When I’m attracted to somebody, it’s really like a surprise. I’m like, “Oh God, I really like him for whatever reason,” do you know what I mean?’

London, New York and LA are mental maps for me of these encounters — some things people have said to me in interview always stay in my mind. Beart’s reply, when I asked if she was happy with the choices she had made, was one of them. ‘My life is my life,’ she cried in her definite, French way. ‘There have been moments of incredible joy and incredible despair: the choices I have taken, the mistakes I have made. But it’s my path.’

© Marianne Macdonald

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Kevin

January 31st, 2008 8:22pm

You need a control group to test your hypothesis that exceptional beauty makes a woman a loser in the marriage stakes. Secondly, your view of marriage seems implicitly to pre-date Henry VIII. I have no objection to that, but I wonder if non-Catholic women genuinely aspire to lifelong marriage. In other words, is relationship breakdown merely a self-fulfilling philosophy of life? (If you believe marriage is a non-binding commitment, are you likely to make the effort to rationally seek a credible lifelong partner?). Finally, in establishing who is and who is not happily married, one has to bear in mind the observation made by Athenian lawgiver Solon to the fabulously wealthy King Croesus of Lydia, which may be paraphrased as follows: "One can only know if a woman was truly blessed when she is dead", because of course, at any moment up to that point it can all go pear-shaped (as it did for Croesus).

Sheila

January 31st, 2008 10:36pm

What on earth is this article doing in The Spectator? Did Hello! or People turn it down?

D Short

February 1st, 2008 3:31am

The Spectator continues to go downhill. What a lot of celebrity drivel! How can a formerly serious, witty and well-written magazine publish such puerile trash?

Tim Jenkins

February 2nd, 2008 8:59pm

The previous two comments are endorsed by this one. Oy vey.

Pablo Escobar

February 14th, 2008 11:31am

Regardless of whether these beautiful women are temporarily single, or coming out of a "bad" relationship, they are still better off than the ugly people with who will never find a partner. For example, I'm a 20 year old who's never had a gf, and is unlikely to have one due to my lack of good looks and shyness. So the premise of this article is faulty -- you start from the assumption that celebrities are suffering in their relationships, when in fact their lives are a million times better than the average geek. The average geek can only dream of a relationship, whereas these good looking celebrities are just finding it difficult to find the RIGHT KIND of relationship. Big deal.

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