This is the year that has been touted as the one when it will all come to an end (“it” being life and pretty much the planet as we know it), with the santa ignorancia brigade who insist on interpreting the Mayan calendar literally already in full doom-and-gloom swing in the wake of this week’s solar flare scare.
But as the first month in what promises to be a 365-day cycle for the history books (a leap year, no less!) draws to a close, it seems a number of celebrity folk have far more pressing personal “finales” to contend with before they can even begin contemplating something as bourgeois as the supposed annihi-lation of mankind: namely, the extinction of their own romantic lives.
Leading the “irreconcilable differences” pack as the clock ticked over to midnight on January 1 were Katy Perry and Russell Brand.
But given that the quirky singer and her self-confessed former sex-cum-heroin addict hubby were hardly a match made in heaven to begin with, their split was scarcely the stuff scandalous headlines are made of.
Following hot on their heels were Mena Suvari (she of “boobies barely covered by rose petals in a bath tub” American Beauty fame) who filed for divorce from her second spouse two weeks ago and Zooey Deschanel, who recently called it quits on her two-year marriage to rocker man, Death Cab for Cutie lead singer Ben Gibbard.
All in all relationships which, while no doubt will leave the couples concerned licking their wounds, were never destined to go down in the annals of great amorous tales.
The same, however, cannot be said for Heidi Klum and Seal.
Admittedly, when these two first became an item, a number of eyebrows were raised regarding their suitability: she, a high-flying German supermodel who was on the brink of becoming a mama to another man’s baby (Heidi was seven months pregnant with former Renault Formula 1 boss Flavio Briatore’s child); he, a British soul singer whose career was entering into something of a mid-life crisis stage.
But then came the marriage proposal in a specially built igloo atop a glacier, the exotic Mexican nuptials, three more children, extravagant annual renewal-of-wedding-vows ceremonies and general displays of total together-ness, which had fellow schlebs and the world at large alike wistfully “oohing” and “aaahing” at their fairytale romance.
That is, until the pair’s announcement earlier this week that after seven years together they, too, were buying one-way tickets on the splitsville train to singledom. So much for that.
And just as the shock of their separation had barely began to seep into our consciousness, Johnny Depp and his long-time French partner, Vanessa Paradis, have reportedly also decided to jump on the boo-hoo bandwagon with speculation swirling that the enviously devoted duo are headed in different directions after 14 years together (what is it with these seven-year cycles?).
So much for the naive hope that rock-solid relationships can and do exist in showbiz…
Ah well. At least we still have Brangelina to cling to. For now.
LARA DE MATOS
TONIGHT EDITOR