A doormat? No, West’s wife is right to keep the show going
At times like these we all need a bit of a distraction. And what could be more entertaining than the sight of a married, middle-aged actor making a complete and utter fool of himself?
enter the Wire’s Dominic West, father of five and husband of the beautiful and aristocratic Catherine FitzGerald, photographed this week in Rome in the company of Lily James, his co- star in a new adaptation of Nancy mitford’s the Pursuit Of Love.
James, 31, and West, 50, were pictured canoodling over lunch in a restaurant and taking in the sights together on the back of an electric scooter.
For mrs West, the embarrassment must have been acute.
Bad enough finding out your husband is smooching the least interesting character in Downton Abbey. But to see him riding one of those overgrown children’s toys like a giant man-baby must have been the final straw.
Honestly, there’s only so much a woman can take.
And yet, amazingly, barely hours after West returned shamefaced from italy, there was his wife, standing by her man.
NOT merely standing, in fact: passionately kissing the old goat in front of photographers outside their home in Wiltshire. As for him, he put on his best loveable rogue face before the couple gave out a hand-written note, signed by both of them, declaring: ‘ Our marriage is strong and we’re very much still together’.
Which was a little peculiar — although not quite as peculiar as the fact he appeared to be wearing exactly the same clothes (with the addition of a brown overcoat) as he had been in Rome.
Perhaps, somewhere out of camera-shot, lay the smouldering remains of a bonfire made out of all his best suits. And who would blame her? Barely a few hours earlier, mrs W had reportedly told a friend that the marriage was ‘probably over’.
Who knows how West earned his reprieve. maybe he blamed the local vino: it looked like a welllubricated lunch. Or did he simply tell her not to be such an old prude? After all, back in 2016 he said to an interviewer that he thought wives should be more indulgent of affairs.
‘it’s daft to kick someone out over a fling, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘everyone should turn a blind eye to men’s behaviour between the ages of 40 and 50. Let it all blow over.’
A wise man once told me that there are only ever two people who really know what goes on in a marriage. But whatever the nuances of this situation, there is something universal about the role of women in Catherine’s stage of life.
she’s married to a successful, egotistical man who is clearly a hard dog to keep on the porch, with four children of their own and a stepchild to manage. Plus she has her own landscape business and a castle in ireland which she helps to run as a hotel. so i don’t imagine Catherine has much time to indulge herself.
there are countless women like her. Long- suffering, middle-aged mums who look after everyone but themselves, who put up with everyone’s nonsense because, quite honestly, they don’t have much choice.
For what it’s worth, i don’t think he deserves her. even without the Rome incident, it’s clear West is not a particularly kind person, or he would never have said what he said about Donald trump getting Covid (he ‘jumped for joy’).
And if he cared about Catherine at all, he would at least have conducted his canoodling in private.
Catherine is beautiful, and i’m sure plenty of men would be happy to be by her side. But i understand why she’s supporting him, and i think people will respect her for it. Just as long as she remembers she, too, has a right to happiness.