Celebrities & Monogamy: Not a Match
Tilda Swinton took a new man to the BAFTAs while her partner watched the kids.
Feb. 21, 2008 — -- Beautiful people. Exclusive parties. Free-flowing booze. Lavish homes, often with custom-made beds. Monogamy.
Which one of these doesn't belong?
Hollywood was created for hookups. If the tabloids and blogs are to be believed, the dynamics of the celebrity dating pool are akin to those of a high school cafeteria. (Pamela Anderson and Rick Solomon are splitting! Wait, now they're back together! No, now she's kissing Tommy Lee!)
And while some celebrity couples look like they only have eyes for each other — Brad and Angie, Tom and Katie — it seems natural that, in the land of surgically enhanced babes and treadmill-toned guys, some stars might want one partner to cuddle with in their multimillion-dollar mansions, and another to show off on the red carpet.
Tilda Swinton, the 47-year-old Oscar-nominated "Michael Clayton" actress, recently rolled up to the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards ceremony with a man 18 years her junior, while her longtime partner, John Byrne, watched their children at home.
Byrne, 68, told London's Daily Mail that he and the actress live "amicably" in the same house, that they're "the best of chums" and that, "We love our children and our children love us. The rest is business."
Perhaps not all business. According to the New York Daily News, after the BAFTA awards, Swinton, Byrne and her younger man had a jolly old time at Swinton's home in Scotland.
ABCNEWS.com's repeated requests for comment from Swinton's publicist were not returned.
"Hanging around at fancy parties, seeing options. … When you have a lot of time and a lot of resources, you also have a lot of options that the rest of society might not have," said Los Angeles-based psychoanalyst and relationship specialist Bethany Marshall. "But you'd have to have a lot of fortitude to make an open relationship public."
Indeed, Swinton, a highly respected actress who's endured scant gossip through her two-decade-long career, has suddenly become a tabloid star. (A Gawker.com blog post about her Monday was headlined "Crazy Indie Actress in Crazy Indie Relationship.")
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