“I’ve been tamed. I've put my last banana in the fruit bowl."—Rod Stewart, following his marriage to model Rachel Hunter on December 15, 1990, quoted in John Walsh, “The Saturday Profile: Rod Stewart, Rock Star: Do Ya Still Think I’m Sexy?” The Guardian, December 5, 1998
Do I even need to write that the couple separated in 1999? I guess you can say that for Rod Stewart, this relationship devolved from “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” to (given his recent gravitation toward what a friend of mine once termed “Grandma’s Music”) “Yes, We Have No Bananas.”
None of us should be surprised that the relationships of entertainers last about as long as summer fireflies. Compared with the eight-day marriage of Dennis Hopper and Michelle Phillips (see my post from the other day), the union of Stewart and New Zealand supermodel Rachel Hunter amounted to an entirety.
(Before we go any further, a question: what does a young woman have to do to graduate from being just a model to being a “supermodel”? A Sports Illustrated appearance? Million-dollar contracts? What, exactly?)
What continually gets me, though, is how silly entertainers sound when they profess eternal fealty in public. It’s like what someone told me when I asked him why so many CEOs spout optimism about their firms when financial results tell a far different story: “They’re caught up in the moment—they can’t help themselves.”
Among the people who haven’t been able to “help themselves,” for instance, is Brad Pitt, who praised his beaming honey in the audience at one awards show as “my angel.” Who was this seraphim? Angelina Jolie? Jennifer Aniston? No, try Gwyneth Paltrow, about 14 years ago, right after their Seven came out.
On another such occasion, Jim Carrey spotted his beloved (no, not Renee Zellwegger or Jenny McCarthy—perhaps it was Lauren Holly?) down the aisle, then pronounced, before millions worldwide watching on TV, “I would slay dragons for you.”
An easy promise to make—no dragons have been around since St. George, to my knowledge—but when it comes to something harder, like sticking with the person he loved after their 10th fight over mirror time, Carrey had no desire to go the distance. As all my married relatives and friends (nearly all of whom are married longer than Stewart, Pitt or Carrey) have told me, marriage requires inordinate patience, even hard work.
But you have to ask yourself, why was Stewart so confident that his relationship would last? His own prior history with Britt Ekland, Kelly Emberg, Alana Hamilton, and God knows who else didn’t exactly inspire optimism about his connubial endurance.
Neither did the age difference between him and his toothsome blond bride. Once, in a live version of the immortal song about his youthful love for what would now be termed a “cougar,” “Maggie May,” he joked that his wife was still in diapers at the time it was recorded. Put another way: she was 21 and he was 45 when they wed.
At some point, Ms. Hunter was bound to look at the man who still thought of himself as a bantam rooster and conclude that he was getting long in the tooth. Though marketers are fond of telling us that today’s youth are not as loyal to brands as earlier generations, I’m afraid the same holds true for how long they stay with older partners. That meant Ms. Hunter would, at some point or other, join Cheryl Tiegs, Christie Brinkley, Cindy Crawford, and others among the legion of MCSs (Maritally Challenged Supermodels).
Do I even need to write that the couple separated in 1999? I guess you can say that for Rod Stewart, this relationship devolved from “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” to (given his recent gravitation toward what a friend of mine once termed “Grandma’s Music”) “Yes, We Have No Bananas.”
None of us should be surprised that the relationships of entertainers last about as long as summer fireflies. Compared with the eight-day marriage of Dennis Hopper and Michelle Phillips (see my post from the other day), the union of Stewart and New Zealand supermodel Rachel Hunter amounted to an entirety.
(Before we go any further, a question: what does a young woman have to do to graduate from being just a model to being a “supermodel”? A Sports Illustrated appearance? Million-dollar contracts? What, exactly?)
What continually gets me, though, is how silly entertainers sound when they profess eternal fealty in public. It’s like what someone told me when I asked him why so many CEOs spout optimism about their firms when financial results tell a far different story: “They’re caught up in the moment—they can’t help themselves.”
Among the people who haven’t been able to “help themselves,” for instance, is Brad Pitt, who praised his beaming honey in the audience at one awards show as “my angel.” Who was this seraphim? Angelina Jolie? Jennifer Aniston? No, try Gwyneth Paltrow, about 14 years ago, right after their Seven came out.
On another such occasion, Jim Carrey spotted his beloved (no, not Renee Zellwegger or Jenny McCarthy—perhaps it was Lauren Holly?) down the aisle, then pronounced, before millions worldwide watching on TV, “I would slay dragons for you.”
An easy promise to make—no dragons have been around since St. George, to my knowledge—but when it comes to something harder, like sticking with the person he loved after their 10th fight over mirror time, Carrey had no desire to go the distance. As all my married relatives and friends (nearly all of whom are married longer than Stewart, Pitt or Carrey) have told me, marriage requires inordinate patience, even hard work.
But you have to ask yourself, why was Stewart so confident that his relationship would last? His own prior history with Britt Ekland, Kelly Emberg, Alana Hamilton, and God knows who else didn’t exactly inspire optimism about his connubial endurance.
Neither did the age difference between him and his toothsome blond bride. Once, in a live version of the immortal song about his youthful love for what would now be termed a “cougar,” “Maggie May,” he joked that his wife was still in diapers at the time it was recorded. Put another way: she was 21 and he was 45 when they wed.
At some point, Ms. Hunter was bound to look at the man who still thought of himself as a bantam rooster and conclude that he was getting long in the tooth. Though marketers are fond of telling us that today’s youth are not as loyal to brands as earlier generations, I’m afraid the same holds true for how long they stay with older partners. That meant Ms. Hunter would, at some point or other, join Cheryl Tiegs, Christie Brinkley, Cindy Crawford, and others among the legion of MCSs (Maritally Challenged Supermodels).
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