New Beau for Charlotte

Yes, I’m going to talk about this too. As all the Casiraghi crazies out there already know, last month our beloved Charlie and Alex “Dull Eyes” Dellal called it quits and went their separate ways. Long-time readers may (just may) have picked up on the fact that I was never a huge fan of Alex. I always thought Charlotte could do a whole lot better, however, for any die-hard Alex fans out there, let me reassure you that, when it comes to my beloved Charlotte, rest assured that no one will ever be good enough for her as far as I’m concerned. Well, Charlotte has evidently moved out of the London pad she shared with Alex and has found another man … (deep breath) the French-Moroccan actor/comedian Gad Elmaleh. Earlier this month the two spent a weekend together, it was all the rage on the French gossip pages, complete with many pictures of a very radiant looking Charlotte. Of course we wish Charlotte all the best and every happiness but … seriously … Gad Elmaleh. The man is forty years old! Charlie, you’re 25, gorgeous, the picture of style, the spirit of sweetness, any man in the world would worship the ground you walk on and you pick someone who’s forty?! (calming down)

I don’t keep up with the French stand-up comedy scene and this Gad may be the nicest Gad in the world, he may be a super-duper Gad and for Charlotte’s sake I hope he is. It is entirely possible I am overreacting about this due to an over-protective nature when it comes to my dear Charlie but … did I mention he’s forty? For someone as young as Charlotte, latching on to someone more than a decade older seems a little odd to me. I may also be influenced by the predictable disaster that was Princess Caroline and Philippe Junot. When I first heard about this new “glamour couple” (as labeled by the mags) that was the first thing that popped into my head, along with the hopeful assumption that this was not true and had been blown out of proportion as the gossip magazines have been known to do. That is probably unfair, but I cannot help it, that’s what I thought of first. I will also admit to being terribly “old fashioned” for this day and age. I certainly did not like Charlotte and Alex (or anyone for that matter) living together without being married. I realize no one these days thinks twice about it, not Haakon and Mette-Marit, not Will and Kate, not Carl Philip and his risqué model girlfriend whose name escapes me at the moment, etc and so on. They pretty much all do it, I just don’t like it and they don’t need me to like it, I just want to be clear I’m not picking on anyone here.

Just to be clear, I’m not trying to condemn Gad Elmaleh either. I don’t know the man, he could be the Mr. Perfect for all I know. My only concern is that he’s forty years old and already has one natural child that I know of by a French actress, Anne Brochet, who he used to live with (and who is five years older than Gad so maybe he’s just decided to go in the opposite direction for a while). When it comes to Charlotte, again, I cannot say I have been very impressed with any of her boyfriends but I have been impressed by how seriously she seems to take her relationships. In an age when the gossip columns are filled with one celebrity “party girl” (to use a more kind phrase) after another, Charlotte has had relatively few boyfriends and stayed with them a pretty long time. There was Felix Winckler from about 2004-2007 and then Alex Dellal from that time until now and those have been the only seemingly serious ones. That has always provided some reassurance that Charlotte is a smart girl who knows what she is doing and not simply behaving irresponsibly. My only problem is, now that Gad Elmaleh is the one she’s being connected with, I’m wondering if that behavior is holding steady or if it is as good a thing as I thought it was.

Time will tell if this will be another long-term relationship or just a passing flavor of the month. So far, just speaking for myself of course, I hope it is a passing fancy and Charlotte moves on to some dashing young gentleman more her own age. In any event, I do sincerely wish her the best.