DATING YOUNGER
A-list cougars
We’re used to age-gap relationships in Hollywood, but for some reason eyebrows are always raised when it’s the woman who is the older partner. So-called ‘cougars’ are too often vilified on social media as ‘cradle snatchers’ while men 30 years older than their wives are two a penny. But such blatant sexism is finally changing as clutch of high-profile female stars proudly parade their ‘toy boys’, and none are happier than Kardashian matriarch Jenner and The Crown star Bonham Carter.
The latter is the first to admit she ‘grieved’ her break-up from Alice in Wonderland director Tim Burton (who is eight years her senior) after 13 years and two children together, but now she has happily moved on – to a man 21 years younger.
The actress, 53, who plays Princess Margaret
in the hit Netflix show, describes her relationship with 32-year-old writer Rye Dag Holmboe as “a bit of unexpected magic in my life”.
She insists: “My boyfriend is unbelievably mature. He’s an old soul in a young body, what more could I want? People are slightly frightened of older women, but he isn’t.”
She worries that more mature women are often not considered sexy.
“Why can’t we be sexually and romantically attractive just when our eggs are expired?” she asks. “Actually, it’s much more fun because we’re so freed of the terror, there is no consequence, it’s all just for fun.”
For 64-year-old Jenner, what started as a rebound romance with Corey Gamble, 39, has become a rock-solid relationship over the past five years.
Though there was initial criticism – Jenner’s oldest daughter Kourtney, at 40, is older than Gamble – she says he is now “part of the family” and her “ride and die”.
“Corey is really taking care of me like no-one ever has in my entire life,” she says, while a family insider says Gamble is “really in love and obsessed with Kris”.
She admitted that having a much younger man devote himself to her was a breath of fresh air after her ‘difficult’ split from second husband, Bruce Jenner, in 2013, before he transitioned to Caitlyn less than two years later.
Jenner’s daughter Kim Kardashian, 39, says a fun relationship is exactly what her mum needed, saying, “It’s been refreshing to see her have a good time.”