CELEBRITY FOR HIRE

I think it should be an axiom: never marry a celebrity! Why? You’re immediately in competition with thousands of other wannabes.

Of course,” marrying for love” is real, at least it appears to be for those who are smitten, besotted, or otherwise failing to control or understand their emotions. Like in A Chorus Line, “What I did for love,” is often self-destructive. There is an air about celebrity that attracts interest like honey attracts flies. Does anyone still wonder who the “groupies” are? Does anyone still not understand that for both the seducer and the seducee, there is a lot of endorphin at work? The one who attracts the groupies (or you can call them wannabes – as in “I wannabe in bed with a star”) is only partly to blame. There are more than enough truisms to go around, like “fame is an aphrodisiac.” For those who have the fame their sense of entitlement is enormous. For those who covet proximity to that fame, the urge is compelling.

Celebrities usually make bad spouses. They are carried away by their own celebrity and will forever be hunting for that next challenge – sexual, vocational – whatever. When a celebrity marries a celebrity, unless one of them is prepared to retire from celebrity, there will be competition. The stories about what we now call “Brangela” (or something like that) describe a somewhat preposterous alliance between two narcissists, each bathing in the splendour and bright light of their own celebrity. They are not to be relied upon for intelligent or thoughtful decisions. When they become parents they do it for reasons that escape ordinary would-be parents. I get the sense that with Angelina or Madonna, they are not parenting as much as they are “accessorizing” They are embellishing their lives and their personae the way they would embellish their wardrobe with a new silk scarf.

I am not going to state flatly that Elin married Tiger because she coveted celebrity. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, we could say that she truly adored him, notwithstanding the fact that he would be a “trophy” husband.

That’s it! Struggling through this essay on celebrity, I finally stumble on the cliché: “trophy.” It describes perfectly the attraction, often hidden by the endorphin reaction, which a celebrity has. Celebrity carries an aura and the supplicant wants to bathe in it.

Tiger is not alone. He has been a philanderer, and that is not supposed to be acceptable. Acceptable it is not – inevitable it almost always is.

There is still a lot to be said for the “boy/girl next door.” If it is happiness you are looking for, stay out of the spotlight of celebrity if you can. Marry into it at your peril.

Even a moderate amount of fame attracts interest. I know. I’ve been there. The salvation has been that my time in the bright sunlight has faded and I can be what I always should have been: a hard-working, caring husband and loving father.

Tiger is not there yet. The senators from North Carolina and Nevada are not there yet. The governor of South Carolina is not there yet. Only the wreckage remains.