Why are we so obsessed with celebrity cheating scandals?

Well, yet another celebrity cheating scandal is upon us.

After over a decade of marriage, Natalie Portman’s husband, Benjamin Millepied, has reportedly cheated on his wife with 25-year-old ballet dancer, Camille Étienne. The news was first reported by the French outlet Voici. Naturally, people quickly took to social media in disbelief and indignation. While we at GLAMOUR don’t like to report on unfounded gossip, it seems as though our collective fascination with highly-publicised “wrongdoings” says something us a society.

Looking back at our collective social history, it seems to be an almost innate human impulse to seek out celebrity relationship gossip — especially when it involves a particularly salacious cheating scandal. From the Greek’s mythologised tale of Helen of Troy’s war-instigating affair to the rumours in the court of King Henry VIII to, far more recently, the cheating scandals that surrounded Charles and Diana’s marriage, celebrity cheating scandals, have, in some form or another, always had some sort of dark hold over us.

Charles and Diana

Tim Graham

Of course, these scandals, and our relationships to them, have evolved over time. Ever since the dawn of the tabloid age, we have gobbled up celebrity cheating scandals with new, and arguably more sinister, appetite. In even more recent years, social media has made it easier than ever to gossip about the latest scandal. Accounts like DeuxMoi, which posts rumours from anonymous sources, have effectively democratised the celebrity gossip system, giving us instant access to an almost endless supply of celebrity rumours, while Twitter has given us an infinite number of co-conspirators, all ready to dive headfirst into the discourse. Recently, we’ve seen the rise of a sort of citizen detective — an online Harriet the Spy who takes to Twitter or Instagram to present their carefully collected evidence to back up or debunk the rumours. The wild rumour about Joe Alwyn having an affair with Emma Laird is one such example.

Our obsession with the celebrity cheating scandal is at an all-time high — but why?

For one thing, celebrity cheating scandals have become a lot more personal in recent years. This is, in many ways, a reflection of our changing relationship with celebrity as a whole. Alongside the rise of social media, we have gained far more access to our favourite celebrities. In turn, many fans fall into fairly intense parasocial relationships with the stars they idolise. These stars become more like friends. “Celebrities have become familiar with the details of their lives displayed on our screen; this creates the same type of interest, protectiveness, and interest that a person has for their friends and family,” explains psychologist Ngozi Cadmus.