Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner’s marriage breakdown has been dogged by rumours of an affair with the family nanny. Picture: Getty Images
IT was one of the Hollywood marriages tipped to last. But after a decade and three children together, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner are set to divorce.
And why? Rumours are the Affleck marriage has ended for the reason behind the end of a string of celebrity relationships — one of them got a little too friendly with the hired help.
Affleck had allegedly been romancing the couple’s 28-year-old nanny, Christine Ouzounian.
Since the rumour made headlines, the nanny has appeared in gossip magazines and on TV entertainment shows looking pretty pleased with herself. A sober-faced Affleck has denied an affair happened but that doesn’t seem to be washing with his now-estranged wife.
About the same time, the 20-year relationship of singer Gwen Stefani and Bush frontman, Gavin Rossdale, also ended - thanks to his alleged fling with the family nanny.
The younger woman was a key part of the family household until Stefani became uncomfortable about the apparent closeness between her husband and the hired help. Now the nanny has been fired and the marriage is over.
Falling for the nanny, housekeeper, bodyguard, babysitter or personal assistant isn’t anything new in celebrity land.
Jude Law fell for his nanny and cheated on Sienna Miller. Arnold Schwarzenegger carried on a lengthy affair with his housekeeper, Mildred Baena — and he has a 16-year-old lookalike son to prove it. The revelation was the end of his glittering 25-year marriage to American TV journalist Maria Shriver.
Actor Ethan Hawke also bedded the family nanny, Ryan Shawhughes, while he was married to Uma Thurman. The liaison spelled the end of his relationship with Thurman, and Hawke went on to marry Shawhughes and have two children with her.
The late Robin Williams also bed then wed the family nanny. The comedian first met Marsha Garces when she was hired to take care of Williams’ son with his first wife, Susan Schneider. At some point, love bloomed and after divorcing Schneider, Williams walked down the aisle with Garces. They were married for 25 years until the actor took his life last year.
So why do so many high-powered celebrities end up in bed with the hired help? You can partly blame it on their narcissistic personality, says psychologist Meredith Fuller.
“Celebrities have a huge need to have the attention focused on them and underneath their suave exterior, many of them are anxious and needy. They need regular reassurance that they are fabulous,” she says.
“The entourage’s role is to look after them, to cook for them, to clean for them, to take care of their children, to stroke their brow and tell them how hard they work. They give everything to the celebrity, they are always there, and they usually don’t have expectations of getting much back. It makes it all pretty easy.
“And the celebrity lifestyle is high adrenaline, on the edge and intense. These people live in the moment. They think they’re special and that they can do what they like because normal rules don’t apply to them.”
Signs your partner may be dallying with the help
Is your partner taking more care than usual with their grooming — particularly before the hired help is due to arrive for work?
Do you feel on the outer or excluded when the hired help is around? “Are they laughing at a joke you don’t get or is there a look between them that you’re not part of?” says Fuller.
Is there a degree of comfortableness and of sharing information that you feel is inappropriate between an employer and employee? Are they having conversations that are more personal than before?
Has your hired help become quieter or less comfortable around you? It may be because of guilt.
Associate Professor Sean Redmond edits research journal Celebrity Studies and is in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University. He believes celebrities have affairs with the hired help because they’re as flawed as the rest of us.
“Celebrities appear iconic, quasi-religious figures but they’re human beings with issues of trust, betrayal, desire and longing like everyone else,” he says.
“When people are allowed behind the veil of celebrity they are brought into a private world. They’re trusted and in trust there is intimacy. A celebrity may have power, glamour and success but feel quite isolated because they are removed from the everyday. At home the mask slips and they wear jogging bottoms and put butter on their toast and watch TV and the nanny or the housekeeper is allowed into that intimate world. From that, relationships can emerge.”
So while bedding the nanny or bodyguard may pamper a celebrity ego, reassure them of their desirability and offer down-to-earth comfort in a sometimes superficial and fast-moving world, what’s in it for the hired help — aside from the thousands of dollars to be made from kissing and telling?
“The hired help gets an ego boost — they’re screwing a star!” says Fuller.
“Some believe the celebrity really needs them. They want to look after this beautiful, creative person because they think their wife or husband doesn’t understand them like they do. And when the affair is revealed they feel special again because now everyone knows they’ve been screwing a star.”
For the wronged partner, there can be humiliation and a double sense of betrayal. Because not only has their partner cheated on them, they’ve done it with a person invited into their home who is a trusted member of the household.
But this betrayal doesn’t always spell the end of a power relationship. David and Victoria Beckham kept a dignified silence when news broke of the footballer’s alleged intimacy with his Spanish PA, Rebecca Loos.
That was 11 years ago and despite Loos sharing details of their liaisons — and how Beckham even fed her strawberries the morning after — the Beckham marriage remains intact. Fuller says this can happen when a couple has an unwritten “contract:.
“Sometimes celebrities decide they’re going to remain a glittering couple because of the money and fame. There might be some murky stuff but they’ll ignore that because they want all the goodies. If the pros of staying together are more than the cons, the couple just deals with it,” she says.
Redmond says the Affleck and Stefani marriages won’t be the last casualties of this type of infidelity.
“Celebrities have cheated for decades — since the start of cinema,” he says. “It’s not a new phenomenon and there will certainly be more cases of celebrities having affairs with the hired help …” Watch this space.
IT’S NOT JUST CELEBRITIES
MARRIAGES wrecked by an affair with the hired help can happen in the average home too.
As busy Australian couples outsource the running of their home to nannies, au pairs, babysitters, cleaners and gardeners, some are at risk of this infidelity.
“You have to make time to talk to your partner about what is going on in your life and what you want. If you don’t, you become like tram tracks — you don’t intersect,” Fuller says.
“We’re all busy and tired and can snap at each other. At the end of the day you’ve barely got enough energy to ask your partner if they’ve put the bins out.
But that’s when your partner begins connecting with the hired help.”
Jo Huggins of Relationships Australia in Gippsland agrees these affairs can arise when a partner feels lonely.
“There’s the sexual part and the desire to feel really connected to someone else when a person feels that is missing in the couple relationship. The nanny or housekeeper sees that person in their natural state and perhaps when they are vulnerable,” she says.
“They have a window into people’s private lives and that can lead to wanting to take things to the next step to have a more intimate relationship.”
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