Footloose and fancy free, Butler ‘can’t commit’ at 46
HE is the hunky Scottish star whose good looks and ripped physique have made him a global sex symbol.
To the chagrin of millions of female fans, Gerard Butler has spent the past two and a half years dating LA-based interior designer Morgan Brown.
But now the 46-year-old star of films including 300, How to Train Your Dragon and London Has Fallen is back playing the dating game after they split because he didn’t want to settle down. A source close to Miss Brown said: ‘She’s very upset but she was pushing him for a long-term commitment and he just can’t commit.
‘She wanted marriage and babies and, much as he loves her, he’s just not ready to settle down. There’s no one else involved in the break-up.’
Butler, whose previous lovers have included singer Rita Ora, Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz, started dating brunette Miss Brown, 39, in May 2014. The pair recently enjoyed a romantic Italian holiday in Positano and were regularly photographed showing off their bodies on the beach near his £3.5 million Malibu home.
Paisley-born Butler started dating Miss Brown after splitting from Romanian model Madalina Ghenea, 27, in 2013.
The actor, a former lawyer, was recently spotted admiring a string of women as he sat outside a London pub.
SHE recently spoke openly of wanting a child at the age of 45 with the ‘amazing man’ with whom she was ‘madly in love’.
Now, lingerie tycoon and Government business tsar Baroness Mone has split from her partner, the Barbados-based golfer Stefan Soroka.
Friends of Lady Mone, who will be 45 next week, last night confirmed that the relationship was over.
One said that the Tory peer, who earned the nickname Baroness Bra after being elevated to the House of Lords a year ago, said she had called time on the relationship because their work commitments made being a couple impossible.
The friend said: ‘Michelle’s work has taken off so much in the last year since she met Stef and sold her lingerie company Ultimo, that they’ve found it increasingly difficult to spend any time together.
‘She told me she has made 20 round trips in the last year to see him in Barbados. It’s been a question of logistics. It’s very unfortunate as Michelle was very set on him.
‘She hoped he would be the one after her messy divorce and she even spoke of wanting another child with him, but sadly that proved not to be.’
Lady Mone is committed to spending three days a week in the House of Lords, as well as signing up for a worldwide speaking tour – she is in Sweden at the moment.
She has also just invested in a new technology company with ex-Formula One driver Nigel Mansell called Social Superstore, which launches next month. Her QVC jewellery collection is believed to have doubled its turnover and Lady Mone is said to be ‘busier than ever’.
But aside from work commitments, there may be other reasons why the relationship stalled.
The baroness, who has three grownup children with ex-husband and former business partner Michael Mone, revealed in June she was hankering after another baby – and is said to have been frustrated that Mr Soroka, a golf coach at the exclusive Sandy Lane resort in Barbados, was reluctant.
‘I always wanted four,’ she said at the time. ‘I’m trying to convince my partner to have one, but I don’t think he’s going to have that talk. I’ve not won that argument yet, and my clock is about to run out. Tick tock.’
Lady Mone said earlier this year that she was blissfully happy with Mr Soroka. ‘I’m mega-happy, he’s an amazing guy,’ she said. ‘Stef has helped me sort out my path, my next chapter. We talk all the time.’ She even tweeted she was house-hunting in Barbados.
However, last week she unveiled plans to expand her £1.5 million mansion in Scotland after buying her ex-husband out of the property. She has now submitted plans for a programme of renovations to get rid of the ‘bad memories’ from her marriage breakdown.
Lady Mone yesterday declined to comment.
She sold her stake in the Ultimo lingerie business, which made her fortune, last year and earlier this year unveiled the Government’s Mone Review which aims to foster new businesses in Britain’s poorest neighbourhoods.
David Cameron’s decision to elevate her to the Lords after her appointment as a Conservative business tsar was widely criticised.
She attracted ridicule as soon as she began her review, posting a picture on Twitter of her drying a top on the dashboard of her Government Jaguar.
There was further criticism when she eventually made her maiden speech in the Lords, quoting the Whitney Houston song The Greatest Love of All.
‘She hoped he’d be the one after messy divorce’