Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes: Hollywood power couple marriage ends up on the trash heap. Does this come as a surprise to anyone?

There are those of us who thought such was inevitable right from the start. The chance that two self-absorbed narcissists (as artists almost inevitably are) were going to be in it for the long term was slim. It’s such an obvious part of human nature—when the cats away, mice play. Even those of us happily married and intending to remain so think that weeks and months of working thousands of miles away from our inamorata might lead to a little extramarital slap and tickle now and again.

The first clue to us cognoscenti of Winslet’s celebrity marriage dance was her first marriage. An obviously talented actress, but perhaps not such a talent in love. She made the quintessential rookie move, marrying “€œassistant director”€ Jim Threapleton at twenty-two. Such an assistant, in the British film world at least, does not mean one who is about to direct a big feature once the apprenticeship ends. It means the bloke who polishes the camera for everyone else. However, having polished cameras he’ll have an extensive address book of those he’s polished for. That first marriage ended just as Winslet herself became a worldwide star on the back of her performance in Titanic. 

You’ve got to give her credit for two things: at least she married the guy as well as the stepping stone bit, and shes too bright to have tried that with a writer (as the old Hollywood story goes, writers being the lowest on the totem pole, they only get laid by the most irredeemably dim actresses on the make).

Next relationship is an upgrade to a director a decade older, with a firm and secure footing to his career. She could have stumbled after her first blockbuster, like many starlets have in the past. But, seven years on and she’s had six Oscar nominations (the youngest to have achieved that), and finally bagged one of the gold ego dildos. If we were to be properly cynical, what need would she have now for an average-looking middle-aged husband? And where, we wonder, is said middle-aged husband now? As the reports go, being consoled by “€œbest friend”€ Rebecca Hall, who happens to be a willowy actress who could use a career boost. Ho hum.

It is of course possible to be too, too cynical, and in order to work out whether one is, we need to come up with alternative, more likely explanations. Just the seven-year itch? Or, the apparent Oscar Best Actress curse? “Everyone who has won the award has suffered a breakdown in their marriage,” say the tabs. 

I wouldn’t want to have to check back through the books to see whether it’s actually true, but it appears to have just happened to Sandra Bullock. Her husband is mooted to have been cheating with a woman called Michelle Bombshell, a “€œtattoo model”€….no, not a model for tattoos, a model with them. And from these pics, someone’s decided that inking in under arm hair would be a good idea. Sheesh, save the ink and move to France if that’s the sort of thing that interests you. 

So maybe that’s it: a curse on winning the Oscar rather than pushy career move. Could be. We report and you decide, as the saying goes.