Bullock may be latest to fall victim to the Oscar curse

SANDRA BULLOCK appears to have become the latest victim of the curse of the Academy Awards amid claims her husband Jesse James was linked with a tattooed model.

The Oscar-winning actress pulled out of the London premiere of her hit movie The Blind Side, as a US celebrity magazine published a claim that her husband cheated on her.

Bullock, 45, who won her first Oscar last week for The Blind Side, had been due in London to promote the drama about a woman who befriends a homeless black teenager.

But she issued a statement to film studio Warner Bros.

In it she said: “Due to unforeseen personal reasons, a trip abroad to support The Blind Side has been deemed impossible at this time.

“I apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused and thank you for your continued support of the film.”

The British premiere of the movie was due to take place in London on Tuesday. Warner Bros declined to comment.

The announcement came as In Touch magazine published an interview with a California model who claimed she had slept with Bullock’s husband of five years while the actress was away in Atlanta filming The Blind Side last year.

Michelle “Bombshell” McGee told US magazine In Touch that she initially made email contact with Jesse James’s motorbike company looking for modelling work.

Bullock married custom motorcycle manufacturer and reality TV star James, 40, in 2005. In several award ceremonies earlier this year, the actress attributed much of her recent success to her happiness at home.

If the claims of infidelity by James prove correct, Bullock will join a long list of actresses whose relationships have fallen apart shortly after they won an Oscar.

Recent previous winners afflicted by what has come to be known in Hollywood as the “Oscar curse” for best actresses include Hilary Swank, Halle Berry, Reese Witherspoon and Julia Roberts.

British actress Kate Winslet, who won the Oscar last year for her role in the The Reader, announced on Monday that she and her film director husband, Sam Mendes, had separated.

Bullock has paid tribute to her husband at award ceremonies in the past, saying at the Golden Globes: “There’s no surprise that my work got better when I met you, so thank you.”

Bradley Jacobs, a senior editor at Us Weekly magazine said: “The Oscar curse is that, more often than not, once a woman wins an Oscar, her romantic life falls apart.

“We’ve seen it happen repeatedly in the past 10 years.”

In 2006, Reese Witherspoon won the best actress Oscar for her performance in Walk the Line, and thanked her “wonderful husband” in her speech. But by October of that same year, Witherspoon and her husband of seven years, fellow actor Ryan Phillippe, announced they were separating. Their divorce was finalised the next year.

Actress Hilary Swank split with her husband of 11 years, Chad Lowe, in 2005, less than a year after she won an Oscar for her role in Million Dollar Baby. Swank had won an Oscar in 2000 for Boys Don’t Cry.

And in 2002, Halle Berry took home the best actress Oscar for Monster’s Ball, and then took home divorce papers the next year, when she split from husband and singer Eric Benet. She referred to Benet in her Oscar speech as a “joy” in her life. The split was reportedly spurred by Benet’s sex addiction.

Winning best actress for As Good as it Gets in 1997, Helen Hunt thanked Hank Azaria, her partner, who then became her husband in 1998. By 2000, the couple’s relationship was over.

In 2001, Julia Roberts won best actress for her role in Erin Brockovich and included her then-boyfriend Benjamin Bratt in her speech. The pair broke up a few months later.

Gwyneth Paltrow thanked Ben Affleck, referring to him as her “friend” during her 1999 acceptance speech for best actress in Shakespeare in Love, but ended it with the actor later that summer.