Cougar Icons

To start the year, I thought I would go over a few celebrity Cougars.

DEMI
Perhaps the most obvious celebrity cougar, Demi Moore is 15 years older than her husband Ashton Kutcher. Demi says she can’t understand the fuss about the age gap, telling a magazine that she isn’t the first person to be in a relationship with a younger man, but somehow has become the Cougar poster girl. She doesn’t mind the title but would prefer to be called ‘Puma’. 

MADONNA
Madonna has just reached 51 years old and Jesus is a 22-year-old Brazilian model, making the age gap between the two a whopping 29 years. Madonna met Jesus on a photoshoot in Rio de Janeiro, then asked him to join her on tour in San Paolo. This I personally find a bit much, she could be his mum twice over. I suppose I could have been mother to the 18 year old I slept with, but I try not to think about things like that: Prince William is in town and I think he is delicious, but I remember him being a toddler playing with a buzzy bee when I was around 7, and that turns me off. I suppose Madonna just doesn’t think about these things.

SUSAN
One of the pioneering celebrity cougars, Susan Sarandon, recently split up with her long-time boyfriend Tim Robbins. The two were in a relationship from 1988 to 2009, and when they started dating Susan was 42 and Robbins was 30. I liked these two as a couple, but they had an awesome run!

JENNIFER
On, off, on, off, Jennifer Anniston and John Mayer have an 8 year age difference, but personally I think John Mayer is the epitome of the immature cub, and Jen needs to let him go, let him go, let him go.

SHERYL
Of course being a cougar doesn’t always go as smoothly as you planned, as Sheryl Crow found out when she broke up with Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong in 2006. In his first interview about the split, Armstrong complained that Sheryl, nine years his senior, nagged him to set a wedding date and start a family and so he ended their three-year relationship. “We were up against her biological clock – that pressure is what cracked it. Because if somebody wants a child, man, that’s the greatest gift you can give a woman. So who are you to stand there and say I don’t want one?’ I had this biological clock ‘discussion’ with the 24 year old last year, who insisted that everything had to be set to my timetable, and he didn’t like that. I had never once mentioned marriage, children, living together or even calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend. I think Lance is a dick for doing that to Sheryl, obviously having cancer didn’t make him reassess his life in any way, shape or form. You’re better off without him Sheryl. 

SADIE
Sadie Frost, Jude Law’s ex-wife, has been known to have a thing for much younger men. After Jude she bagged herself a toy boy 16 years younger than her. Most recently she got it together with 23-year-old musician Kristian Marr, who then reportedly dumped her for 16-year-old Pixie Geldof. Ouch.

HALLE
Halle Berry bagged herself a boyfriend 10 years younger than her in the form of model Gabriel Aubry, and they now have a daughter together. I really like Halle, because that woman had a run of bad relationships, proving to women like me that you can be beautiful, intelligent and talented, and still make poor choices in men.

MARIAH
Mariah Carey married MTV star Nick Cannon in the Bahamas in May 2008. Nick is 11 years younger than Mariah. I think Mariah proves to women like me that you can be a ditzy, demanding diva and still make lucky choices in men.

KIM
Once Kim Catrall’s relationship ended with her third husband (who co-wrote The Art Of The Female Orgasm with her) Kim found herself in the arms of many a younger man before shacking up with Canadian chef, Alan Wyse, 23 years her junior.