Why do so few celebrity marriages last?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

Pick ten random celebrities.

If some of them have never been married, discard those and pick married or once-married ones.

How many of your ten once-married celebrities - assuming you picked at random, rather than reading ahead to find out what I was looking for - are still married to their first husband/wife?

I'm betting that for most of you the proportion is a lot lower than it would be for members of the general public.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

1. money + opportunities

the rest of us have less of all three, which makes us more acquiescing to social pressures to remain marreid

[monmouth3]

2. I just saw where Amy Poehler and her husband, ? Arquette are getting a divorce. I'm imagining she

is getting all of the professional offers and his career is sort of stuck. No matter how close that old jealousy does creep in. I could be totally wrong of course but......

[yeoman6987]

4. his career is sort of stuck.

He is on a weekly TV show called "The Millers". He is the star of the show. However, I do kinda know what you mean as far as attention. She certainly has more "news" then Arnette who tends to have a "quiet life".

[mopinko]

3. yeah dont underestimate the chains of dependency.

people get stuck together sometimes. kids, money, parents, whatever, life can be a trap.

[MADem]

5. Lead us not into temptation!

If your job involves working intimately with good looking people for ten or twelve hours a day, a closeness develops. If they're on location, in a remote or romantic setting, well, there ya go.

People get silly and they do stupid things--they don't step back and analyse their behavior sometimes...

[TransitJohn]

6. I doubt they're statistically any different than non-celebrity marriages. eom

n/t

[Beaverhausen]

7. Pick 10 random friends- how many are divorced at least once?

I bet the ratio is the same.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

10. Virtually none, but most of my friends are in their 20s or 30s, so it's not a fair test.

Among my parents' friends, I'd say it's about one in three, among the population as a whole I believe it's about one in two, among celebrities it looks to me like it might be two in three or even four in five.

[TeamPooka]

8. Half of all marriages fail, in the news you only hear about the famous ones.

[enough]

9. Continuous PR. (nt)

[tinrobot]

11. Ego

If you work hard to become famous, you probably have an oversized ego. Large egos run counter to what marriage is all about. In a successful marriage, you often have to put your ego aside and compromise for the sake of the relationship.

When you add in money, the availability of willing partners and work schedules that often keep couples apart, you have a recipe for divorce.

That said, there are/have been some successful famous couples. Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman come to mind, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, David Bowie and Iman, Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates...

[JI7]

12. they are more likely to be away from each other and spend a lot of time with others

plus being celebs they are likely to get more people who want to meet them than most people.

[nyquil_man]

13. You're a beautiful person surrounded by beautiful people.

If you're an actor, you're going to be working day in and day out with beautiful people. Sometimes you'll be called upon to act as though you're in love (or at least in lust) with some of them.

That's a pretty unique situation.

[CANDO]

14. I think they fall in love with a character.

What do we really know about these "people" other than their ability to portray characters well? I think celebrities fall for the same thing. They're attracted to someone whom they later realize is just a shallow shell of a person.