HUGH JACKMAN, MY CELEB CRUSH, IS SINGLE!!!
I was deciding between two already-written articles about recent fun LA events to publish today, but then it hit me—nothing is as important right now, (to my shallow self, anyway,) as the news that Hugh Jackman and his wife, Deborra-lee Furness, have just split up!!!
A recent pic of the Jackmans, before the split.
My teeth almost fell out of my head when I read the news on Friday! If Mr. X had learned of the split before I did, and tried to make me guess who it was, even with five hundred clues, I would never have guessed this one in a million years!!!
The weird thing is that, after having an undying non-stop crush on Hugh since I first heard him sing on SNL in 2001, I had told Mr. X that I was finally over Hugh just two nights prior to the break-up news! I’m not sure why the crush had lessened, but that he sat in Novak Djokovic’s box during this summer’s Wimbledon Men’s Championship certainly contributed to the demise. (Hugh’s Wolverine vibes didn’t help Novak, thank goodness—he lost to twenty-year-old Carlos Alcaraz.) Hugh had also tweeted his support of my least favorite player back then. So I believe seeing him do all that is where my love for him began to wane.
Just look at that gorgeous face!
But the embers of my flame never went totally away. My heart does still flutter a tiny bit when I hear Hugh talk or see him smile.
As you’re reading this diatribe on my love for him, the show biz folk among you may be thinking, “Does Karen not know he’s gay???” Well, first of all, I don’t know anything for sure unless I’ve witnessed it for myself! (We should all try to live by the old famous admonition, “Believe half of what you see and nothing of what you hear.”)
But of course I know that that’s the prevailing word on him. And even though I very rarely pass rumors around, I heard some inside info from an incredibly reliable source some years ago. So here it is: When I saw Hugh’s amazing performance in The Boy From Oz in New York in 2004, I had breakfast shortly after with a producer of a different Broadway show, (whom I’ll call “Tom” here,) and we discussed my massive crush on Hugh, of course. Tom laughed and told me that everyone in the theatre scene there knows that Hugh is in a relationship with his assistant, John. I was shocked. I protested that, just because Hugh plays a gay icon, (Peter Allen,) in the show, doesn’t make him gay in real life. Tom insisted it was true and that everyone knew it but kept it as quiet as possible because they adored Hugh.
Hugh Jackman in the middle, (of course,) his wife on the right, and his assistant on the left, back in the day.
I still took it with a grain of salt, but then, I witnessed something that caught my attention. It was when Hugh won either the Tony for the show just a few months later, or when he won an Emmy the next year for hosting that earlier Tonys show. Whichever it was, he not only thanked his wife, but his assistant John, who was shown on camera in his seat, practically bubbling over with love. I literally gasped seeing their interaction. I didn’t want it to be true, (only so I would still have a chance with him, if my beloved Mr. X and I ever broke up, God forbid, and bite my tongue,) but it did sort-of explain his marriage to a chubby woman who is thirteen years older than he is. (Actually, his choice of an older, not-thin wife means I still have a chance! But I always have better footwear than her nerdy choices! That’s for sure.)
Just a couple of examples of Deborra-lee’s dreadful footwear! And there are sooo mnay more! This one was just the other day.
And this one was a few years ago. How has no one told her to do better with the shoes??? (Perhaps that’s why he’s leaving her.)
Then a few years later, I saw a picture on the internet, (of course,) of Hugh and another hunky guy at the beach holding hands. A few months after that, a woman whose show business website I occasionally wrote for called me when I was packing for a trip, so I wasn’t paying attention while we chatted. For some unremembered reason, we got on the subject of the Jackmans, and I absentmindedly mentioned that picture I had seen. The woman was gay herself, and in the biz, so I figured it was not a big deal. But she went nuts on me, saying she was friends with Mrs. Jackman, who she was sure would “not stand for” Hugh being gay. She was so upset that she never called me again, even though I was still supposed to be writing for her endeavor! If I hadn’t been distracted by actively packing during our convo, I would not even have mentioned it. And I’ve kept that whole Broadway rumor to myself ever since, as though Hugh was my friend whose secret I was protecting.
But gay or straight, it doesn’t matter, not even one little bit. Hugh Jackman is still my second choice to Mr. X. But a word of warning to him…Paul McCartney is still waiting in the wings…of my heart.
High Jackman and Deborra-lee Furness on their wedding day, looking sort-of like a boy and his mom, don’t you think?
Whatever happened between the Jackman duo, it has worked for all these years, and I think it’s very brave of them to do whatever it is they want to do solo now, especially in these awful days of celebs’ every move being watched, recorded, and scrutinized by strangers.
The one thing I absolutely do believe is that Hugh and Deborra-lee are best friends and will always be.
Someone on a comments page when the news hit last week wrote that people don’t break up after this long together if one or both of them don’t have a new love interest on tap. I assume that person will be on Hugh’s part because he has a gazillion options, while I feel that poor Deb doesn’t have any. And I semi-agree; why rock the steady boat with someone you’ve loved for decades, on whatever level it was, except for a newer shinier option?
So, anyway, we can all speculate all we want about why the Jackmans broke-up, (or were together to begin with, for that matter,) but I doubt we’ll ever find-out. And it’s none of our business, anyway! We should all just wish them the best, and then focus on our own lives.
One of the pix of Hugh Jackman and a friend at the beach several years ago. And this is the last I’m going to say on the subject.
But here’s one funny thing about this situation: When I first saw the news on Friday, after I picked my jaw up off the floor, I just knew I had to comment on social media about it. So I jotted off a quick little missive about how Mr. X has to watch his step now. I originally wrote, “This is shocking! Mr. X better be nice to me now–my celebrity crush is finally single!!! But Hugh Jackman has to shave that beard first,” that last part referring to his facial hair in the pic. And then about ten minutes, later, I realized that people probably thought I was referring to his wife! (For you innocents among us, that’s how relationship partners of gay people are referred to, because they cover them up.) So I had to go back and add an explanation of my use of “beard” to my posts.
Lastly, no matter how huge my crush on Hugh is, the demise of his long marriage still saddens me. I may be jokey about it all, but I really do wish those two, and their children, the best. Now all of us, including yours truly, need to leave that family alone.
