Hollywood Marriages: Short and Sweet?

National Public Radio New Orleans interviewed me soon after Renee Zellweger and Kenny Chesney got married, oh so romantically, on the beach. NPR asked me if I thought the marriage would last. I said, “No. They don’t know each other well enough. They haven’t spent enough time together. Between his gigs and her films, they saw each other a total of six time before their marriage.”

The interviewer was not happy with my answer. He said something to this effect: Kenny is a nice guy and she seemed nice. So what would be the problem? I reiterated, “They do not know each other long enough. Marriage is not a movie-set ceremony on a beach between ‘nice’ people and that’s the end of the story. You have to be able to live with that person on a daily basis.”

Now, of course, we know that the marriage was annulled and lasted only four months. She didn’t know he had certain sexual preferences. This is more common that you would think. I devote a chapter in my book, The Dirty Seven: Ladies Beware to GuyMan. GuyMan is one of the seven categories of men on the dating scene that cannot sustain a loving, complete relationship. In this case, GuyMan is the gay guy who has not accepted his gayness and desires to appear straight. Then, one day, his wife come home early from work and finds him in bed with the pool guy.

Hollywood marriages are laughable because of their short duration and mammoth price tags. Let’s not call them marriages. Let’s call them publicity stunts to keep stars, and d-listers alike, in the headlines. They are impulses of the moment turned into cinematic dream processions and displays of opulence.

Now we have the recent break-up of Pamela Anderson, after her recent 3-month marriage. We have had Britney’s famous 55-hour marriage. J-Lo’s previous 10-month marriage. Drew Barrymore and Tom Green’s 5-month marriage. Lisa Marie Presley and Nicholas Cage’s marriage that lasted 3 months. Cher and Greg Allman’s marriage lasted a total of 9 days. They tied with Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman, whose marriage also endured for a whopping 9 days as well. However, the prize goes to Robin Givens and her tennis instructor, whose marriage came to an end on the same day they got hitched.

Material Girl: The Heather Mills Example

In my book, Booby Trapped: Men Beware the Dirty Seven Sisters, I warn men about the seven types of women who will make their lives a living hell in a relationship setting. "The Material Girls" comprise one of the seven categories, which I break down into three sub-categories:
--Gimmie Monie
--Pretty Penny
--Thingie Wingie.

They are all self-centered, self-entitled, and empty-souled, but today I want to address the most calculating of the three: Gimmie Monie. Gimmie Monie's motto comes from the Beatles' song whose title is her life obsession: "Money." "Gimme money, that's all I want."

Ironically, Heather Mills and her recent divorce settlement with the Beatle Paul McCartney, is a great example of this type. $50 million is not enough for her. She is squawking that she wants more. She dumps a glass of water on McCartney's lawyer's head because she feels she is entitled, simply through marriage and bearing a child, to exorbitant, unearned sums.

In Booby Trapped I cite examples of other women who have glommed onto men and expect millions because they have trapped a man into signing the marriage license. A recent case comes to mind in which a housewife divorced her corporate executive husband and demanded $48 million. She was rewarded this sum even though she cheated on her husband and left him. What was she going to do with that money? "Travel and find myself." He was the one slugging it out in the work-world to create this wealth and she was the one taking it away, unearned.

A man can spend the rest of his life paying for the mistake of falling into Gimmie Monie's clutches. Alimony laws allow for unfair distribution of wealth in many cases. I have talked to, or received letters from, many men who are straining under the alimony they are paying to gold-digger exes. Gimmie Monie and her eventual alimony reward will make the few hours of happiness with her in the past seem like a sick trick played by a mischievous universe.

Paul McCartney was booby trapped by Heather Mills. Do not underestimate the destructive and greedy qualities of women who will take advantage of the legal system and drain a man like an eternal parasite.

Flavor of Lust 3

"Looking for Love in all the Wrong Places," might be the sub-title for VH1's show "Flavor of Love 3." As with "Rock of Love 2," this show's premise is that the star will find true love amidst a flurry of exposed breasts, mini skirts, and attention-getting tactics. Loud-mouthed self-aggrandizement and abject hero-worship make the contestants sillier and sillier each season. It's a mistake to think that the show has anything to do with love at all. That's one of the things that makes it funny.

Flavor Flav is a humorous guy, who seems to be in on the joke. Part of the fun is that he looks like a sea-monkey who needs re-hydration, while the girls are fawning all over him. Part of the fun is the absurd idea that love is based on contests of wit, skill, and exposed flesh. Did I say "wit?" There isn't much displayed. Lack of intelligence makes the show a comedy. Lack of emotional intelligence makes it a symbol for what is not working in today's dating and mating scene.

On the last episode, the mean-spirited "roast," in which the girls denigrated each other on stage, nobody came out looking good. At the end of the show, Flavor Flav announces, "One clock, two bodies left." He refers to the women as "bodies." Very appropriate. He bestows the clock on the winning "body" and the loser goes off shattered.

Nobody's relating on any level other than the most superficial. The women are willing to plunge their tongues into his mouth, rub up against him, and claim that he is their man. They are willing to say cutting and cruel things about each other to bolster their value in his eyes. It's the survival of the nastiest.

The fact that this is Flavor Flav's third attempt to find love this way is a statement in itself about the effectiveness of this method for finding a mate.

Rock of Lust 2

I love the entertaining craziness displayed on VH1's Rock of Love 2. Of course, it gives me lots of fodder for discussing what is twisted with the way our culture fantasizes about finding "true love."

The goal of developing mature, deep devotion on a "reality show" is as unreal as the bolted-on, half-cantaloupe fun-bags sported by most of the participants. Bret Michaels, the recipient of all the adulation and attention, is unreal too, with his heavily applied eyeliner and bandana'ed wig.

Here is the formula: Put 15 publicity obsessed media-hoes together and see if one can be the most self-debasing Barbie in the group. Strip, wash Bret's motorcycle with toothbrushes, strip some more, go on theme-dates such as rodeos and paint-ball battles, strip some more, vie with each other to make the least intelligent pronouncements, and strip some more.

At the end of the parade of open-mouth kissing and more exposed udders than a barnyard of milk-cows, Bret will find his life's mate! I love it because it demonstrates what I propose: How pathetically shallow and inept "dating" is as a means for making the deep connection that we know as true love.

On dates, even off TV, people are on their best behavior. Love is not about how people behave on dates. It's about how people behave when they have taken off their party hats and masks. It is about being able to live with a person on a daily basis, not just riding a Mazerati on a racetrack or jumping out of an airplane. (Sorry, that was Flavor of Love 3, which I will cover in another discussion.)

Of course dating is fun. But let's not confuse it with the complex give and take of a solid love relationship. Nevertheless, Rock of Love 2 is as hilarious as comedy can get.