Does winning an Oscar lead to divorce?

Carrie Fisher says that women who win Oscars can't keep their husbands.

Published March 2, 2006 8:29PM (EST)

In a quirky and undersourced piece in the Home section of today's New York Times, actress and writer Carrie Fisher asks this pressing question: Where do celebrities keep their Oscars? (Her answer? It depends where a person "is in their life.") In the course of her "reporting" -- it appears she called a few friends, including her former stepmother, Elizabeth Taylor -- Fisher also digresses from her subject to opine on celebrity gender politics.

"My friends and I used to make bets about how long a celebrity marriage would last after the woman had won an Oscar and the man hadn't," Fisher writes. "Regardless of how big the man's box office was, once the woman received the statuette, it seemed that the days of the marriage were numbered. For some men, at least, a woman flaunting an Oscar can feel like deliberate emasculation, and spell doom for the relationship."

Certainly what Fisher suggests seems plausible. But I'd love to know if it has ever actually happened. If it hasn't -- and we don't know, since she gives no examples -- is Fisher simply sending a coded warning to Reese Witherspoon and Felicity Huffman that if they take home the gold guy on Sunday night, their days with Ryan Phillippe and William H. Macy are numbered?


By Lori Leibovich

Lori Leibovich is a contributing editor at Salon and the former editor of the Life section.

MORE FROM Lori Leibovich


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