I don't know if I'm out of the loop or I just haven't been paying attention, but aren't there a lot of mistresses out there these days?
Remember back in the day when there were just two or three a year? Those good ol' days of Jessica Hahn and Donna Rice milking the spotlight with their tales of extracurricular activities with Jim Bakker and Gary Hart. Or how about those Clinton years when about one lady a year - Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers, that thong-wearing intern Monica Lewinsky - always seemed to come out of the woodwork with their alleged (or not) escapades with the commander-in-chief?
We're only a third into this year, and there are so many "other women" around, it's hard to keep track.
I didn't think it could happen, but these gals are giving adultery a bad name - or should I say an even worse name. They are turning their dalliances with married men into a nice little business for themselves. To paraphrase an old Dave Chappelle joke, if you get with a married, famous man, there's a future in it.
The most recent bombshell came from a woman who calls herself "Bombshell," Michelle "Bombshell" McGee. It turns out this multitattooed gal had an affair with Jesse James, husband of recent Oscar winner Sandra Bullock.
Rielle Hunter, aka John Edwards' mistress/baby momma, is still around, telling her story (and showing how good she looks without pants) in the pages of GQ, and this week, to Oprah.
Let's not forget the 15 or 400 women who had relations with Tiger Woods. And hey, Ashley Dupre is back! The call girl who serviced former New York governor Eliot "Client No. 9" Spitzer in 2008 has a Playboy spread.
Not only are these ex-mistresses out there in the media, telling their story to anyone who'll listen, they're making some loot off it.
McGee seems to be capitalizing the most on her newfound celebrity.
Just a couple of days ago, ol' Bombshell (who has admitted she made $30,000 from a tell-all interview with In Touch Weekly) danced topless at Las Vegas' Deja Vu showgirls club. Next month, she will compete in a celebrity boxing match with adult-film star Gina Lynn. And it was announced last week that a celebrity version of "Cheaters" is in the works, hosted by McGee and alleged Tiger Woods mistress Jamie Jungers.
(Am I the only one who's beginning to admire Stephanie Birkitt for still staying mum on her affair with David Letterman and not seeking fame and fortune from it?)
Sleazy business
Speaking of Tiger's ladies, they're all trying to profit their dang selves. Several of them, including Jungers (who recently won $75,000 in a "Tiger Woods' Mistress Pageant" on Howard Stern's radio show), Playboy model Loredana Jolie Ferriolo and waitress Mindy Lawton can be found in the latest issue of Vanity Fair, spilling the details and posing in pictures wearing close to nothing. New York club hostess Rachel Uchitel, who was the recent subject of a New York Magazine article, landed a correspondent gig on "Extra." And porn star Joslyn James set up a Web site publishing her "sexts" wth Woods.
I'm not letting the men who cheated with them off the hook. These dudes are famous, and they should've known better. Did they think they could have affairs with women - these women - and get away with it? And I'm definitely not letting the media off the hook, either. We are capitalizing just as much as the women are. Newspapers, Web sites and blogs need readers more than ever, and what quicker way to bring them in than to talk about celebrities and the sordid, sensational things that they do.
Why do we watch?
Aly Semigran, who's been blogging about these celeb sex scandals for iVillage.com, says the fascination with these ladies (and I use that term loosely) is quite obvious. "It's just almost the car-wreck factor of it all, of you don't want to look away, even if you want to," Semigran says. "Which seems like a bit of a cop-out, but I guess it's just that morbid curiosity in people of what these women are gonna say next or do next. You almost wanna hate these people because you so like people like Sandra Bullock and the women that are more easy to identity with. And it kind of gives people a villain, I guess."
As long as new developments in these scandals arise (Will Tiger and Elin divorce? Did Sandra and Jesse do a sex tape?), we'll never get rid of these gals. They needed these men to launch them into the stratosphere, and they'll stretch their 15 minutes of fame as long as they can. Hey, reports have already surfaced of Uchitel shopping around her own dating reality show, "Romancing Rachel."
In today's culture, this year's tabloid fixture is next year's reality-show star.
