# Should Sandra Bullock Have Known Better? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 31, 2010, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503 "2010-03-31T21:54:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503/1 "2010-03-31T21:54:40Z")
I am generally not too much of a celebrity follower, but for anyone who watches the late-night talk shows, the Sandra Bullock story has been impossible to miss. The only Sanrda Bullock movie I have ever watched was the original “Speed” but I have seen her a few times on David Letterman or other similar shows, where she struck me as someone who is intelligent, funny and personable. I had never heard of Jesse James until a year or so ago, when he was on a talk show and it was mentioned that he was married to Sandra Bullock. I guess it was surprising, as they seem to have very different public images, (she seems pretty conservative, at least in appearance, he is apparently the outlaw type, at least on the surface) but everyone has their own “type” that they are drawn to, and if Sandra Bullock likes bad boys or bikers, that is certainly her perrogative. ## That said, it seems that the reprehensible behavior that Jesse James has apparently been engaging in during his marriage is not as shocking as it would otherwise be for most people, just judging by his past behavior—He has been in two failed marriages before, including one to a porn-star, he has three kids by three different women, he has admittedly struggled with drugs and alcohol in the past, and at one point was apparently court ordered to attend anger-management classes for a domestic violence situation. Sandra Bullock must have known at least some of this info going into the marriage (at least about his children and his two previous divorces) yet she went right ahead and married him anyway. ## So assuming that is the case, (that she was fully aware of his past) does she deserve less sympathy than someone who had no warning signs, as it were, about a partners character or past unseemly behavior? ## I don’t know what to really think. To me, Sandra Bullock seems like a decent person, but it is hard to muster too much shock or outrage on her behalf, (I say that knowing full well SB probably could not care less what any of us unwashed masses thinks, and frankly, I don’t feel much shock or outrage for anything that any celebrity may do in their personal life) as it seems to me that Jesse James gave off plenty of clues that he was not a boy scout long before they ever tied the knot. Do you feel less sorry for someone who ignores potential warning signs in a relationship, or do they deserve just as much sympathy as someone blindsided by a Jekyll and Hyde? What is your opinion? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503/2 "2010-03-31T22:09:50Z")
My opinion is that movie stars tend to take marriage less seriously than others. Or, to be more exact, as actors, they tend to fall in and out of love more easily, and the stigma of getting a divorce is lower. I suspect Miss Bullock knew somewhere in the back of her mind that the marriage would not last, but didn’t care. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503/3 "2010-03-31T22:14:00Z")
I don’t know, or really care, other than hoping that she dumps the bastard and he and his skanks fade back into oblivion, but this is a great opportunity to post this, one of the best I’ve seen: [Hitler finds out Jesse James cheated on Sandra Bullock](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4lDkAHS5Hk) ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503/4 "2010-03-31T22:38:07Z")
A few points, as a defendant: 1. Sandra Bullock is several levels above your average porn star, I would imagine. Jesse James has no real book lurnin, but he’s developed three or four different successful businesses, so it’s a safe assumption that he’s intelligent. That he’d be unsatisfied in a relationship with your average biker babe or porn star is a given, but not that he’d still be unsatisfied with SB. 2. Actors are away on location a significant amount of their career, leaving their spouse behind. As a class they tend to be very “in the moment” and emotional sorts who, being asked to act like they are in love with their on-screen counterpart, just as often do fall in love, just to break up soon after the film or once one of them heads off to their next gig. Being the spouse who has been left behind, both via the loneliness and the thought that your mate is just as likely being unfaithful to you wherever she is, it’s probably a very hard thing to resist. 3. For a Hollywood marriage to remain stable for more than a year or two is fairly impressive to begin with. JJ and SB have been together for 4-5 years before anything happened (that we know of), so even if Jesse was bad, it’s likely that whoever Sandra had ended up with, she wouldn’t have fared better. Jesse might not be as clean-cut looking as anyone else she would marry, but to add blame to him on that is a bit dishonest. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503/5 "2010-03-31T23:05:54Z")
> [@equipoise](#): > > i don’t know, or really care, other than hoping that she dumps the bastard and he and his skanks fade back into oblivion, but this is a great opportunity to post this, one of the best i’ve seen: > > [hitler finds out jesse james cheated on sandra bullock](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4ldkahs5hk) loves it! ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503/6 "2010-03-31T23:10:40Z")
Yes. As I recall Jesse’s pron star wife was divorcing him when he became famous with Motorcycle Mania. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503/7 "2010-03-31T23:36:12Z")
She married a foul mouthed motorcycle mechanic/reality TV “star” who is covered in tattoos and was married to a porn star. On top of that his name is “Jesse James”. :rolleyes: What did she expect beyond the opportunity to pick up an STD? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503/8 "2010-03-31T23:46:17Z")
Just to add some figures since there’s always the chance that the meme that Hollywood marriages don’t last isn’t accurate… Using the people listed in the “Bankable Stars” list on Wikipedia, we have: Tom Hanks: 1 Divorce Mel Gibson: 1 Divorce Tom Cruise: 2 Divorces Harrison Ford: 2 Divorces Jim Carrey: 2 Divorces Leonardo DiCaprio: 0 Divorces (0 Marriages) John Travolta: 0 Divorces (1 Marriage) Julia Roberts: 1 Divorce Robin Williams: 2 Divorces Brad Pitt: 1 Divorce George Clooney: 1 Divorce Russell Crowe: 0 Divorces (1 Marriage) Bruce Willis: 1 Divorce Johnny Depp: 1 Divorce Nicole Kidman: 1 Divorce General statistics are this: [41 percent of first marriages end in divorce. 60 percent of second marriages end in divorce. 73 percent of third marriages end in divorce.](http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=363986) With 13/15 married at least once, we would expect to see no higher than 5-6 first time divorces (probably lower since these are all people who are still midway through their life). Instead, we have 12 divorces, double the expected **lifetime** rate. And given that second marriages are less likely to last than the first, the numbers don’t bode well. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503/9 "2010-03-31T23:59:59Z")
That’s awfully hard to say, since the only people who know what really went on in their relationship are Sandra and Jesse. I’d have to agree, though, that yes, she probably should have seen this coming. Marrying a bad boy doesn’t usually end well, in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![McDeath\_the\_Mad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a3d4f5/32.png) [@McDeath\_the\_Mad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/McDeath_the_Mad)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503/10 "2010-04-01T00:23:29Z")
I don’t want to defend Jesse James, but I must say don’t judge a book by its cover. Seeing a couple of shows with Jesse on them he seems like a very humble, articulate well spoken person. In one of his Motorcycle Mania specials he was building a copper gas tank and had to use rivets. He was at some museum and he saw a seat from a WW II bomber. It had way more rivets in it and had more complexity to it and he said something to the fact: “look at this chair, the guy that built this probably built dozens of them, for a better cause. And they never gave him his own TV show”. Also when he was on the Celebrity Apprentice he was fired because he didn’t call up his wife Sandra Bullock to get her and her rich friends to drop money at a charity event. He basically said he wanted to keep his relationship with his wife private and thought it was in poor taste to ask friends to spend money. Again I’m not defending him, but before this I always kind of admired the guy. Nobody ever gave him anything, he either should have been in jail or killed by now if he didn’t “find” metal working in his teens. Maybe Sandra Bullock is a raging hormonal bitch all the time at home? Either way I’m disappointed he did cheat on her… MtM MtM ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503/11 "2010-04-01T01:07:34Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > For a Hollywood marriage to remain stable for more than a year or two is fairly impressive to begin with. JJ and SB have been together for 4-5 years before anything happened (that we know of) I haven’t been following too closely, but I think that at least one of his affairs supposedly started within just a year or so of the marriage. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503/12 "2010-04-01T01:23:53Z")
I only watched Monster Garage a couple of times, but Jesse James came across as kind of a douchebag to me. I’ve always been a big fan of hers (if not her movies), and when I first heard that she was going to marry him (and having heard a little about his past), I thought it was a bad move. But of course I was judging based on very little information. I hope she has a good prenuptial agreement. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503/13 "2010-04-01T02:18:23Z")
Yes, but women always seem surprised when their bad boys turn out to be (wait for it): bad boys. Duh! But the heart wants what the heart wants. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503/14 "2010-04-01T02:27:18Z")
I agree with **MeanOldLady** …there’s got to be a huuuge difference between pre-TV and post-TV Jesse James. It’s not like SB picked up some scruffy mechanic from a biker bar. He is a genuine TV star. Granted, he’s a genuine TV star that either - depending on how you look at it - went back to his old ways, or got big enough to be like all the other slutty stars. But SB seems to simply have taken a chance and lost. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503/15 "2010-04-01T03:52:52Z")
Wasn’t James still married to Lindemulder when Bullock met him? As I recall, James then left Lindemulder when she was pregnant. Then five years later, Bullock and James apparently decided they wanted a kid so they sued Lindemulder for custody so they could “rescue” the child. So America’s sweetheart stole somebody’s husband and child. Maybe this is all just karma. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503/16 "2010-04-01T09:24:52Z")
The angle I find interesting is the notion that’s being bandied about that female Oscar winners have a tendency to run into relationship problems shortly after winning. Is this an actual occurrence? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503/17 "2010-04-01T09:52:49Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Wasn’t James still married to Lindemulder when Bullock met him? As I recall, James then left Lindemulder when she was pregnant. > > Then five years later, Bullock and James apparently decided they wanted a kid so they sued Lindemulder for custody so they could “rescue” the child. > > So America’s sweetheart stole somebody’s husband and child. Maybe this is all just karma. In my (fortunately not personal) experience, someone who leaves someone else to be with you is highly likely to evenutally leave you for someone else. If fidelity was in their nature, they wouldn’t have left/cheated on their original partner in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Girl\_From\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3da27b/32.png) [@Girl\_From\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_From_Mars)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503/18 "2010-04-01T09:55:46Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Wasn’t James still married to Lindemulder when Bullock met him? As I recall, James then left Lindemulder when she was pregnant. > > Then five years later, Bullock and James apparently decided they wanted a kid so they sued Lindemulder for custody so they could “rescue” the child. > > So America’s sweetheart stole somebody’s husband and child. Maybe this is all just karma. Another forum looked into the dates of their meeting - IIRC he had already filed for divorce when they met. ---
**Author:** ![Snickers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503/19 "2010-04-01T13:12:32Z")
> [@Tangent](#): > > I only watched Monster Garage a couple of times, but Jesse James came across as kind of a douchebag to me. True dat. I used to watch the show, and liked it (and Jesse) but there was one where he was just a whiny little troll. He’d wanted to make a motorcycle with the engine of a semi truck. When his designers and builders told him that it was basically impossible and recommended making a trike instead, he pitched a fit. I’ve never seen anything so obnoxious. Oh, and why did they recommend a trike instead? Safety. The engine was way too heavy for a person to successfully control when mounted on a two-wheeled bike, so they went for the three-wheeled design for better stability. And when it was finished it was pretty cool, but even then Jesse couldn’t get over it. I was yelling at the TV, telling them to make it how Jesse wanted it so that hopefully he’d end up as a grease stain on the pavement. Utter disregard for their recommendations, only because he wanted to make something that looked cool. Dick move. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503/20 "2010-04-01T13:24:54Z")
Here’s what I find funny about this- people’s opinion on this sort of thing usually depends on one of(or both of) two things: how much they like the people involved, or how attractive the person they’re cheating with is. Think about it. Sandra Bullock is America’s Sweetheart, and Jesse James is some tattooed biker guy she married, so everyone’s reaction is “_Ooh, poor Sandra, what a heartbreaking ordeal!_” and “_Jesse should be ashamed of himself! Look at that skanky whore he cheated with!_” But if we’re talking about, I don’t know, Heidi Montag and Spencer douchebag whatever, the reaction would be more like “_Fuck that bitch, she deserves that shit!_” or “_Spencer’s always been an asshole, what does she expect?_” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-sandra-bullock-have-known-better/534503.md?page=2)