Hollywood's Latest Love: the Open Relationship

Dec. 29, 2009 — -- Hollywood and marriage have never quite gone together like a horse and carriage. But, lately, it seems like La-La Land's obsessed with the open relationship.

Angelina Jolie, the dark angel of the movie industry, recently told Germany's Das Neue magazine that monogamy, frankly, isn't all that important to her.

"I doubt that fidelity is absolutely essential for a relationship," she said. "It's worse to leave your partner and talk badly about him afterwards."

The 34-year-old mother of six added that she and domestic partner Brad Pitt never deny each other their freedom, even if that means being apart.

"Neither Brad nor I have ever claimed that living together means to be chained together," she said. "We make sure that we never restrict each other."

It's the hot thing: relationships with few rules or restrictions, dating conventions be damned. The free-wheeling outlook need not be tied to one lover. After dabbling in a girl-on-girl relationship with DJ Samantha Ronson in 2008, Lindsay Lohan has moved back to men, reportedly hooking up with Gucci model Adam Senn and introducing him to her family before Christmas.

It's not just the young'ns. Older couples are also embracing the trend: in February, Bee Gee singer Robin Gibb, 60, revealed he had fathered a child with his live-in-housekeeper, Claire Yang, 33. Gibb has an open relationship with his wife, Dwina Gibb, a bisexual former druid priestess.

Although she was reportedly not pleased that her husband's fling yielded a baby, Dwina Gibb has said in the past that their extramarital affairs are no big deal.

"We have an open relationship," the Daily Mail quoted her as saying. "Robin has had flings in the past with friends of mine and he talks about them. It doesn't worry me because I trust my friends. And I am, after all, his best friend as well as his wife and lover, and I'm sure we'll be together."

'It's Complicated' Spotlights Older Open Relationships on Big Screen

Life imitates art; art, life. So it's no surprise the open relationship trend has transitioned to the big screen as well.

"It's Complicated," the new romantic comedy starring Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, features a baby boomer marriage turned divorce, turned hook-up, turned love triangle. Baldwin's character, Jake, realizes 10 years too late that he longs to get back together with his wife, Jane (Streep), whom he left for a svelte 20-something. Despite his new wife's hard body, Jake finds sex with his over-50, former wife enthralling.

"My character, I'm not even sure he knows what he wants," Baldwin said in a recent appearance on ABC News Now's "Popcorn with Peter Travers." "He wants out of it, he wants back into it."

For an industry that rarely knows what it wants, the open relationship seems ideal. Let's see if the trend continues into 2010.