The Ups and Downs of J.Lo, Drew Barrymore and Sir Paul

June 17, 2002 -- I see the bright colors, hear the people whooping and hollering and think, "This is gonna be great."

Then, once I'm in that line running my hands along the grotesquely unsanitary steel dividers, I really look at the thing and I fall apart. First it's the racing heart that I can clearly see through my shirt, then the lip sweat, the palm sweat and the stomach flips. I don't tell the friends who are with me that I'm dying inside, for I fear their chiding and mockery almost as much as I do the behemoth mass of metal that has now become the dreaded monster that lives under my bed.

"It's only a ride," I tell myself — one that I'm so afraid to take. It's the same thing I tell myself every time I start to fall in love.

J.Lo’s Woes

If it's so difficult for the Average Jo/Joann to fall in love and maintain a relationship, imagine what it's like for a superstar. Talk about an amusement park ride! Regular people deal with the normal trepidations — "Will I get hurt? What if this isn't it? We're so different, but it feels so right." Blah, blah, blah.

Now, I suppose celebs deal with that too; after all, they may be famous, but they are human (OK, maybe not Madonna). The additional problems celebrity poses are considerable when love is in the air. Imagine what happens when one partner is famous and the other is not. This introduces a lack of self-esteem for the non-famous of the two. Couple that with outside pressures, constant travel, adoration and idolization, no privacy, no time, no anonymity, more money than they know how to count, really no normalcy.

It is with all this explained that I say, "I feel bad for J.Lo."

With the whole Puffy debacle behind her, Ms. Lopez was fortunate enough to meet a new man. They fell in love, married.

All seemed right in Jennifer's world and then boom! — eight months in, they separate. The rumored reason: Cris Judd just couldn't handle her stardom.

I have to wonder how truthful this is. He couldn't have possibly thought she was on a downward spiral and it was going to get better. She's big and getting bigger. If she sneezes, they make it into a song, a video and inspiration for a new line of J.Lo tissues.

She's been riding a wave that doesn't seem likely to lessen any time soon, at least not for another couple of years. So when Cris popped the question (course, she might have asked him), did he think she was going to drop the ball, get knocked up and move to a little house with a white picket fence?

I wonder what she thinks about the whole thing. Is she devastated, or did she see it coming? She has been married once before and that lasted just about a year. We could say she's got the bad track record and he's the victim.

Either way, it's sad to see another Hollywood union come to a crashing halt. I think my sympathies lie with Jennifer and Cris because they seemed on the surface to have more of a sweet and subtle kind of dyed-in-the-wool relationship then some of the other recent Hollywood couples who have gone the way of the splitting sword.

Paul and Heather: The Real Thing

The Drew Barrymore/Tom Green divorce was about as surprising as not winning the Power Ball when you don't buy a ticket. It was a given. They acted like morons. They surrounded the whole idea of their marriage with stupid tricks and they looked for unnecessary publicity (the Saturday Night Live fake wedding). Their breakup seemed inevitable. How could the public take it seriously if they didn't seem to take it very seriously themselves?

There's the Britney and Justin thing. They weren't married, but they were serious. But hell … they're really kids. They didn't walk down the aisle, so there's no real harm done. This was probably the first big relationship for either one of them and since they are individually who they are, it's next to impossible to think they'd be ready to settle down at this young age when the entire world has practically decided to lie at their feet in the hopes that they merely get kicked as either walk by.

Justin is rumored to be dating a stripper. Talk about apples and oranges: Going from a virgin (allegedly) to a stripper. What are the odds?

I'll tell you a union that's not going to go by the wayside … that of Sir Paul McCartney and his new bride, Heather. Here's a larger-than-life star who also happens to be a genuine, die-hard romantic. He lost the love of his life and took time and great pain in finding someone new. Unless she realizes he's seriously older than she is and decides down the road that she needs someone younger, poorer, and less nice, I think this one's a lock. They took their time. They dated. They tried to shy away from the public eye. They got engaged. They waited. They planned. And then they took the plunge.

And unlike the rest of us, most Hollywood types are of the ilk that when you fall off the horse, you have to get right back on. Don't be surprised if you hear about Drew or Tom or Jennifer hot steppin' it with another paramour in no time flat. They get to do that in La La Land. Maybe it's because nothing seems really real there anyway.

Or maybe it's just because when you're a celebrity and life is as crazy as it is, there's no reason to fear a roller coaster.

Heidi Oringer is director of entertainment programming at ABCNEWS Radio.