Marianne Macdonald

Very few single girls actually have that much sex

The press launch of the Sex and the City film in the Plaza in New York a few weeks ago took the form of a junket very like the one Hugh Grant blunders into in Notting Hill, made surreal by the fact that Sarah Jessica Parker was ill and cancelled her whole first day of interviews. This meant that some 100 journalists, flown in to hear her thoughts on the movie, had in turn been cancelled. Maddened, they spent two days abusing the PR until, in a furious act of concession, she allocated some of them a far shorter slot with Ms Carrie Bradshaw the following day — seven and a half minutes, supplemented for the fortunate by a round table in which participants had 20 minutes, perched in groups of eight around a table, to ask SJP questions before she was hustled from the room.

The wages of beauty are loneliness

I am always struck, interviewing the planet’s most beautiful women, by the disconnection between their difficult love lives and dazzling looks. Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey, Elle Macpherson, Helena Christensen, Emmanuelle Béart, Inés Sastre, Diane Kruger, Sienna Miller — in my decade as an interviewer I have met dozens of these stars and supermodels, and almost invariably they are single or struggling with divorce or some dubious relationship. These women can often seem to have everything — stunning looks, amazing figures, to-die-for wardrobes, killer charm, fame, money — except happiness with men. It is a small, unacknowledged tragedy that I discussed with the supermodel Helena Christensen, who knew all about it.

Marianne Macdonald

Diary - 24 February 2007

I arrive at David Bailey’s Clerkenwell studio. Bailey is doing a shoot for Lancôme; I have been asked to interview the Spanish supermodel, Inés Sastre. The shoot is the usual story — unidentified people with ponytails roaming round stained boxes of mini-croissants, a friendly, normal make-up artist, loud, cool music and a simultaneous air of tension and bohemian confusion. Inés and the make-up artist troop to the window to check her make-up in the better light. They sit back down and the make-up artist grasps a brush like Picasso, staring as if to X-ray her brain. All I can see is Inés’s back, slumped slightly in a Valentino coat. It turns out there isn’t time for me to actually interview her, and tense discussions result in me retracing my steps to Notting Hill, with the promise she will meet me later.

Saturday

Very few single girls actually have that much sex

Very few single girls actually have that much sex

Wednesday

The wages of beauty are loneliness

The wages of beauty are loneliness

Saturday

Diary - 24 February 2007

Diary - 24 February 2007