Daily Loaf

I’ve been following the lives of celebrities ever since I was old enough to flip through the pages of People at the beauty salon while my mom was getting her hair done, though I didn’t really begin to enjoy the juiciness until I hit puberty.

I won’t call it a guilty pleasure because I am utterly incapable of feeling guilty about my 20-year fascination with all people famous. And it’s more than simple curiosity – my celeb addiction is an innate nosiness carried down through generations of Polks, my dad a shining example of the family’s need to know everything about everything at all times, no matter if it’s our business or not.

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of out-there stories about Madonna and Guy Ritchie’s impending divorce. Like, “Guy Ritchie cancels Madonna’s order to fill swimming pool with Kabbalah water.” “Guy and Madonna’s marriage ended after ’she began scheduling sex around time in the gym.’” “Rocco Ritchie wears Yankee shirt, Guy Ritchie weeps.” And my personal favorite: “Guy Ritchie Compares Madonna To Gristle, The Cockney Charmer.”

Was there ever any doubt that the union between those two wouldn’t last? And that their divorce would be ugly? Madge is ungodly rich, and Ritchie is only ungodly-rich-by-association, a matter I’m sure added to the discord. But he was able to put up with her shit for seven years, so likely he feels entitled to a fatty severance package.

It was clear to those of us who know Madgie pie that she married Ritchie because she was starting to feel her age and her primal instincts were screaming for her 42-year-old-self to settle down. One delightfully bushy-eyebrowed daughter just wasn’t enough. While Ritchie may have seemed like a rather brutish choice for a woman drawn to effeminate dancer types, her history of relationships – Sean Penn, Warren Beatty, Dennis Rodman, even Vanilla Ice – indicated that she was unconsciously looking for a masculine candidate who could tame her notorious wild side and plant another seed in her loins. And he did. In the early days, she had that satisfied cat look, like she was getting a good healthy fuck on a regular basis, and little Rocco was proof that Ritchie was doing something right. But as her muscles hardened, so did her heart and she even seemed to abandon her renowned sensuality in favor of a fake English accent and prudishness that coincided with the release of her children’s book. 

So what really got in the way of their continued love for each other? I blame Madge’s ego, which appears to have inflated exponentially with her fame. Ever see her in an interview, when she deigns to give one? She oozes holier-than-thou. Plus, there could only be one person wearing the pants in that marriage and it most certainly wasn’t Ritchie. Over the last few years, he had that desperate, caged dog look of a man who’d finally surrendered his power, a man who was acutely aware that he was little more than an accessory on the arm of his wife.

It didn’t help that Ritchie was unable to perform the miracle of making Madge a film star. The woman is a notoriously bad actress and all he managed to do by putting her in his films was make himself look like he lacked artistic integrity.

The best things that can come out of this divorce for Ritchie is a generous settlement, a cute, younger (less famous) girlfriend, and a comeback film. The first is inevitable, the second is rumored, and if Sherlock Holmes is as good as the buzz it’s getting, he could very well make his way out of this whole thing unscathed.

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