Stars who step out of their comfort zone for love
Not all celebrities end up with someone in the industry; sometimes they look much further afield with surprisingly happy results. Here are seven such couples.
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Not many bookies would have offered odds on Prince Harry’s future wife being a Toronto-based TV actor, but once the pair met, he said simply, “all the stars aligned”. What looked an odd combination proved to be so wrong it’s gloriously right.
Not all celebrities end up with someone in the industry; sometimes they look much further afield with surprisingly happy results. Take ecstatically happy tennis superstar Serena Williams and tech head Alexis Ohanian, and George and Amal Clooney — the actor and human rights barrister who, like Harry and Meghan, want to change the world.
So how do odd couples make it work? It’s all down to listening to your head and heart, says relationship expert Dr Karen Phillip. “We often gravitate to our ‘comfort zone’ type of person, even if we have been disappointed previously,” she says. “Instead of automatically selecting the same type of person for the same negative traits, you can select a partner who is entirely different and, as you challenge yourself, can discover new aspects of yourself.
“These couples have looked outside their ‘normal’, enabling them to find different, better, exciting.”
Here are seven intriguing couples who beat the odds:
OLIVIER SARKOZY AND MARY KATE OLSEN
He’s the banking brother of Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French president, she’s an Olsen twin. When Olsen, 32, met Sarkozy, 49, they did not look like the perfect match — he towers over her as well as being 17 years her senior, with two teenage children. While his ex-wife Charlotte branded the relationship “grotesque”, the fiercely private couple married in 2015 and are reportedly keen to start their own family.
SERENA WILLIAMS AND ALEXIS OHANIAN
She had never heard of Reddit, he was no tennis fan, but when Ohanian, 35, sat next to eight-time world No.1 Williams, 36, by a Rome hotel pool in 2015, it was game, set and match. “I felt like a door had been opened to a person who made me want to be my best self,” he told Vanity Fair. Ohanian proposed in 2016, and they married and had daughter Alexis Olympia last year.
HEIDI KLUM AND TOM KAULITZ
She’s a 45-year-old supermodel and TV presenter who never seems to age and he’s a 28-year-old hipster musician, but if the photos of loved-up Klum and Kaulitz in Disneyland this month are anything to go by, they are getting on brilliantly. And pashing. A lot.
JOHN CORBETT AND BO DEREK
Aidan might have been Carrie’s one that got away on Sex And The City, but in real life Corbett, 57, has been with 1980s sex symbol Derek, 61, for the past 16 years. They met when John asked to accompany her to the Oscars. “He knocked on my hotel door and it was love at first sight,” she later said.
JOE JONAS AND SOPHIE TURNER
She is the tall and willowy British actor who has grown up before the cameras on the world’s most-watched television show. He is the Arizona-born singer/actor who came to fame with his siblings as the Jonas Brothers. But given her (television) husband was a murderous despot, it’s nice to see Sansa Stark happy. Game Of Thrones actor Sophie, 22, met The Voice coach Joe, 28, through friends in 2016 and things moved swiftly. He popped the question last year and Turner, who has been out and about with her fiance in Sydney over the past couple of weeks, is still shocked, telling Marie Claire magazine: “I’m still like ‘Holy shit! I’m engaged’.”
JEREMY MEEKS AND CHLOE GREEN
There could be no stranger story than that of ‘Hot Felon’ Jeremy Meeks, 34, who found fame as a catwalk model after his police mugshot went viral. It also brought him into the sphere of Topshop heiress Chloe Green, 27, who fell in love with the blue-eyed jailbird, giving birth to their son Jayden in May.
JEFF BRIDGES AND SUSAN GESTON
Academy Award winner Bridges, 68, and non-actor Geston, 64, have one of Hollywood’s most enduring relationships. As a student waiting tables she refused his first invitation to go out but eventually changed her mind and the couple have now notched up 41 years of marriage and three daughters. He paid tribute to “my beautiful wife” during the awards season leading up to his Crazy Heart Oscar win in 2010, crediting the talented photographer as both creative and life partner. “The relationship just keeps getting better and more intimate and sexier and all that stuff,” he said.