Going once, going twice…
Welcome to the ‘divorce auction’ trend
Two weeks into our marriage – and living in Los Angeles – my husband came back from a meeting with a Hollywood business manager chuckling quietly to himself. “Are you and your new wife thinking of having children?” the man had asked him. “And if so, would she be likely to have them here in LA or back in the UK? Only it’ll make a big difference when it comes to the divorce.”
It was the “when”, not “if ” – the idea that I might blithely accept being sent off to Guam (or wherever spousal and child support are obsolete) at 39 weeks’ pregnant… and the fact that our honeymoon bags were still lying unpacked in the hallway that he found most amusing.
Then again, any Hollywood business manager who didn’t work on the assumption that marriage was just an eye-wateringly large cheque waiting to be written – less a leap of faith than a mutual psychotic break from which both parties were sure to be left neurologically hobbled – wouldn’t last a day in LA, where as Cher once said: “The only grounds for divorce are marriage.”
This wouldn’t be a problem if showbiz people didn’t see marriage as a bi-annual thing, each time failing more miserably and acrimoniously – and yet each time expecting a different result. After all, it only took the rats in behavioural scientist BF Skinner’s experiment two or three bouts of electrocution to understand never to go near that lever again. This lot seem content to plug themselves in and let the kilovolts flow.
With that in mind, I think Russell Crowe and his ex, Danielle Spencer, deserve some sort of award. Not only did they stick it out for nearly a decade, but they have come up with an ingenious idea: the Divorce Auction. Yes, on April 7, you will be able to snap up 227 of the couple’s personal items from Sotheby’s Australia, which is holding Crowe’s Art of Divorce sale – that’s if you’re in the market for a fully functioning replica Roman chariot (from Gladiator), a collection of dinosaur bones the actor bought from Leonardo Dicaprio, or indeed a second-hand leather groin protector (from Cinderella
Man) that was handy during the marriage’s death throes but is now no longer needed.
What could be more cathartic than watching your matrimonial memories – the fruits of your life together – go, go and be gone, only to be replaced by a nice crisp wad of spiritually cleansing notes?
I’m sorry, Gwyneth, but you’ve just been dethroned as the world’s most zen-tastic divorcee. Who wants to call their exhusband “brother” (answer: nobody) or “consciously uncouple” when you can commercially uncouple? Eradicate the past along with any threat of future nostalgia by monetising your romantic rubble?
Mental health advocates could learn a lot from these two. We could all learn a lot from these two. And I say this as somehow who feels as peeved as everyone else about celebrities trying to tell us how to eat, sleep, vote, love and live.
Divorce, however, is different: it’s their area, their expertise. And just as you’d listen if Raymond Blanc started telling you how to cook the perfect medium rare steak or if Dame Joan Collins reeled off a list of her deepest, darkest anti-ageing tips, Russell and Danielle may just be the ones to tell you how to turn your divorce into an art form. And, no, Sotheby’s won’t be interested in your combined tat, but you might get a couple of quid for those clogshaped egg cups at the local car boot sale, alongside a hefty helping of spiritual harmony.
Why consciously uncouple when you can commercially uncouple?