By Michele Yeo
This Love may have taken its toll on Maroon 5 but this week is most certainly taking its toll on frontman Adam Levine’s marriage. The singer has been trending all week (which is more than we can say for his band’s music – rimshot) since a self-described “Instagram model” took to TikTok to allege that she’d had an affair with him, producing receipts in the form of Instagram messages. Levine is married to and expecting a third child with Victoria’s Secret model Behati Prinsloo. It didn’t take long for the discourse around the matter to include countless tweets asking several versions of the same question: “How could Adam Levine cheat on a woman as hot as Behati Prinsloo?”
The same question was posed earlier this year when it was announced singer Shakira and model/actress Emily Ratajkowski had both split from their respective husbands amid rumours of infidelity. And when people weren’t wondering how impossibly hot and sexy women like them could be betrayed, others were lamenting that if women like them were being cheated on, what hope did the rest of us have when it came to finding faithful partners? This kind of chatter reached a fever pitch when it was revealed Jay-Z had the audacity to cheat on the absolute goddess that is Beyoncé. Bey famously alluded to the infidelity in her 2016 landmark album “Lemonade” and then Jay-Z himself seemed to admit to it in his 2017 album “4:44” and then again in subsequent interviews with the New York Times and David Letterman.
The ’80s and ’90s gave way to one of the world’s most famous love triangles when it was revealed Prince Charles had been unfaithful to Princess Diana with Camilla Parker Bowles. People weren’t just incensed at the infidelity, they were clutching their pearls that Charles had cheated on his young, beautiful wife with the less conventionally attractive Camilla. The sentiments rose up again recently with Charles becoming King and Camilla becoming Queen Consort after the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Imagine if the roles were flipped – we’d likely still think Charles was a dog for cheating, but people might be able to understand if he had left his “dowdy” wife for the younger, more beautiful one and not the reverse. And speaking of love triangles, even though Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston were the golden couple of Hollywood, when he left to be with Angelina Jolie, as beautiful as Jennifer is, many people were saying things like, “I get it, I wouldn’t be able to resist Angelina Jolie, either” as if it was somewhat more palatable that Jennifer Aniston, as stunning as she is, could be left for someone as equally or even more attractive and alluring.
So, why is it so hard to believe that beautiful women, like the rest of us, get cheated on? And when we ask that, are we not subtly saying that beautiful people deserve loyalty more than the rest of us average schlubs? Does “pretty privilege” also extend to fidelity?
Study after study has proven that attractiveness and even sex play small roles in why people look outside their relationships. In fact, in a piece in Psychology Today, sexual desire places last on the list of reasons people cheat. So ladies, if you’re abstaining from carbs or doing extra sets at the gym because it makes you feel good, great! If you’re doing it because you think it will help keep your partner from straying? Well, if Diana, Beyonce, Shakira, Emily, Behati and countless others have taught us anything, girl, eat that fucking croissant.
And as for Adam Levine? If the allegations are true (including him asking his mistress for permission to name his unborn child after her) well, he needs to use a Payphone to call his therapist for a Wake Up Call and then move (like Jagger) into a bachelor pad where he’ll live in Misery. Sidenote: why do I know so many Maroon 5 song titles? Chilling.
