Every time I read about a celebrity dating or marrying someone, that person is almost always already (say that five times fast) well-known on their own. It is true that people tend to date those who are in the same league, not to mention that “celebrity couple” headlines sell well in the paper. However, it seems hard to find a celebrity (the big-times ones, at least) dating a “regular” person.
So my question is, do celebrities really date other celebrities primarily, or is it because the news only reports “celebrity couples”?
I suspect there’s some confirmation bias. You just don’t hear about the thousands of celebrities dating non-famous people because it’s not tabloid-worthy.
Jon Bon Jovi married his High School sweet heart. Patrick Swayze married a lady he had known since childhood. Those are the two exceptions I can think off. The Beatles were married to various non celeb at times as well (Lennon, McCartney).
EDIT I think several of the Pythons were also married to “commoners”.
OK, let’s test this. To get a sampling of celebrities unbiased by their relationship status, I’m going to look at the set of movies currently playing at my local theater, and take the first-two-billed names from each, then look each of them up on Wiki and see who (if anyone) they’re in a relationship with. That gives me:
Battleship:
Alexander Skarsgård - Only relationship listed is ex-girlfriend actress Kate Bosworth
Brooklyn Decker - Married to tennis player Andy Roddick
Chernobyl Diaries:
Jesse McCartney - I see no relationship listed
Jonathan Sadowsky - No relationship listed
Dark Shadows:
Johnny Depp - In an LTR with actress Vanessa Paradis
Michelle Pfeiffer - Married to television producer David E. Kelley
Avengers:
Robert Downey Jr. - Married to film producer Susan Downey
Chris Evans - No relationship listed
MiB 3:
Will Smith - Married to actress Jada Pinkett Smith
Tommy Lee Jones - Married to Dawn Laurel, who doesn’t have a Wiki page
Snow White and the Huntsman:
Kristen Stewart - In a relationship with actor Michael Angorano
Chris Hemsworth - Married to actress Elsa Pataky
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel:
Judi Dench - Widow of actor Michael Williams
Bill Nighy - In a LTR with actress Diana Quick
The Dictator:
Sacha Baron Cohen - Married to actress Ilsa Fisher
Anna Faris - Married to actor Chris Pratt
What to Expect when you’re Expecting:
Cameron Diaz - Last relationship listed is baseball player Alex Rodriguez
Matthew Morrison - Only relationship listed is ex-engagement to actress Chrishell Stause
So, out of 18 celebrities, we have 14 for whom the current or most recent relationship is a celebrity of some sort, 3 with no listed relationship, and only one with a listed non-celebrity partner. That seems pretty clear to me, though some of those partners seem to draw most of their fame from who they’re partnered with.
Personally I’d also include Susan Downey as a non-celebrity. If she was just Susan Levine, she would be in the movie business but she wouldn’t be a celebrity. If people know her, it’s because she’s married to Robert Downey.
Personally, I think it’s a factor that none of us like to think about. People tend to form relationships “in their league”. Celebrities are attractive successful people who are out of most people’s league.
Most women are not in Ben Affleck’s league. Most men are not in Jennifer Garner’s league. But Ben Affleck is in Jennifer Garner’s league and Jennifer Garner is in Ben Affleck’s league. So celebrities end up in relationships with other celebrities because they don’t have to settle for ordinary people like us.
And leaving aside the “celebrity” range, everyone’s dating pool is predominantly people who engage in similar professional pursuits or attend the same social events or have similar extracurricular interests as them.
You may not end up with an equal-celebrity spouse but if you’re, say, an entertainer your mate may be a succesful producer/writer/marketer, or maybe an entertainment lawyer or personal trainer; if you’re a star headliner s/he may be a writer/choreographer/session musician that’s respected in the trade but unknown to the masses. Those are the sorts of people whose world intersects with yours on near everyday basis. Then there are those long-term relationships that started before celebrity struck, which date back to when the celeb was him/herself just an anonymous regular citizen.
The problem with this is that there are quite a lot of celebrities that are there not because they are outrageously hot, and yet they still wind up with other celebrities more often than not. So this league thing only works if celebrities are using other criteria than most people use to determine what league people are in. In other words, it would be more a classist thing.
Another factor, though, is that it seems that romantic leads are more likely to wind up with each other, followed by people in other relationships. It is my hypothesis that pretending to be in love or to love each other makes either fall for each other or at least think they have so fallen.
Because another constant in celebrity relationships seems to be how often they fail. People even say things like, say, that a 10-year marriage is forever in celebrity terms.
It is also interesting that the few exceptions that we have found are those where the relationship was ante celebrity. Or in Dolly Patrons case with a man who was possibly richer than her, I am presuming a man who owns a road paving company is not exactly cash strapped.
Yup. As a rule, celebrities are the performing monkeys - nice to watch perform, but no connection to the real world and no reason to intersect their lives with the rest of us.