Oh Romeo

This week, one news story has held the captive attention of entertainment audience around the world, sparking shock, outrage, and sadness. People have taken to news feeds, twitter, and YouTube, posting condolences, teary memories, and even the occasional raging death threat. 

Of course, I’m talking about the affair between Kristin Stewart and that older director no one has ever really heard of, from Snow White and the Seven Huntsmen.

Because, why should we focus on the atrocities committed by a madman during a violent, murderous rampage, when there is young Hollywood infidelity to discuss! (Please not the sarcasm.) 

If you’re not familiar with KStew’s infidelity and RPattz’ broken little British heart, or even know what the heck a KStew or RPattz is, congratulations on not being completely caught up in ridiculous Hollywood minutia and living what I can only assume is a much more rich and vibrant life than my own. For those unfamiliar with the tragic tale of love and cheatery, there are many web sites out there with time/date stamped blow-by-blow (or kiss-by-kiss, as it were) reports of the affair, outing, and subsequent fallout that read similar to a crime spree breakdown, from first treacherous kiss to final public apology, in gory, assumptive detail.  What it basically amounts to is that Kristin Stewart, who plays the bland, awkward, uninteresting main character in the Twilight Saga (and in real life) has cheated on Robert Pattinson, her leading man in the Twilight Saga – and in real life, with the married and much older director of her last movie, Snow White and Seven Huntsmen. The illicit couple was photographed mid-kiss, and the photos surfaced this week on the cover of a US Weekly magazine. Caught red handed in the embrace of her daddy-issuelicious co-adulterer, Stewart chose a very Hollywood attempt to fix the situation, and maybe steal the spotlight from US Weekly - those rotten affair reveals - delivering an extremely public apology through People magazine to “those close to [her] and everyone this has affected,” including RPattz.

Because, nothing says I’m sorry than a written apology published through an entertainment magazine, amirite? 

Here’s the thing…actually, here’s the things, since I have multiple comments on this:

1.     None of us should care about something like this.

2.     We do care, because we lead boring, shallow little lives that demand interesting intrigue that in no way affects us, and we care because they are lovers in real life (or so we are meant to believe) AND lovers in a very bad series of movies based on an even worse set of books that millions of people inexplicably love! They’re like the Romeo and Juliet of our time! If, of course, Romeo’s family ran a multi billion dollar movie franchise and Juliet’s family consisted of millions of screaming and swooning teenage girls and middle-aged women who, instead of calling themselves the Capulets, call themselves Twihards, and IF the two families actually desperately wanted them together instead of desperately pulling them apart, AND IF the poison the lovers drank was actually a 41 year old movie director.

But other than that, they are totally like Romeo and Juliet. (Or so I tell myself so as not to feel quite so ridiculous for reading about the whole thing.)

3.     Did any of us actually believe that the love affair between a 22 year old actress and a 26 year old actor was going to last through the ages? Really? Let’s be honest, we were all silently taking bets on how long it would last, and I was never really even sure I believed they were together in the first place – seemed like a ploy to sell more movie tickets, in my most humble of opinions.

4.     But apparently they were together, though extremely unwilling to admit it. (KStew once told People Magazine that she would never cheapen her relationship by talking about it publicly. No, she would just cheapen it by cheating on it very publicly.) And now poor little RPattz is devastated and heartbroken.

5.     Let’s play another round of let’s be honest…we all kind of thought he would cheat on her before she would cheat on him, didn’t we?

But of course, a little good can come from every bad situation. I think there are a few lessons to be learned here.

1.     If you become an extremely famous actress (deserving or otherwise) and are constantly followed by paparazzi, maybe keep your affair indoors and away from prying cameras…Just a thought.

2.     If you should find that your affair has been outed on the cover of a magazine, admit that it’s true (kinda hard to deny it at that point) but insist it was a one time, momentary indiscretion. It sounds way less harsh than admitting it was an affair that spanned several months, and indiscretion sounds much better than “calculated choice.”

3.     No matter how important privacy is to you, when it comes to your relationship, issue a public apology to your wronged lover through whichever magazine will offer you the most money. After all, a girl’s gotta eat.

4.     If you are an angst-ridden teenager girl who puts more stock into the relationship between fictional characters than you do into your own relationships, by all means, post tearful pleas on YouTube for the couple to get back together, or insist that you will hunt down and kill the cheating fool who would break that the heart of such a hunky piece of man meat.

That always helps to right the wrongs of the world.