Edel Coffey: In defence of Leonardo DiCaprio's dating habits
Edel Coffey: Who and how we date, within the realm of consenting adults, shouldn’t really be anyone’s business.
Is it just me, or was there something quite old-fashioned and outdated about the coverage around Leonardo DiCaprio’s dating habits last week? For those not familiar with Leo’s love life, he has seen yet another relationship bite the dust just as his partner was about to reach the grand old age of 25.
Leo, internet legend has it, will not date a woman over 25. There’s even a handy Reddit chart to prove it, listing the ages of all of his exes. Like some dark fairy tale, it seems Leo must break up with his girlfriends before they reach the age of 25 or a terrible curse will befall him and he will turn into a pumpkin or a mortal man or some other fate worse than death. But as news that his latest relationship with Argentine model Camila Morrone had ended as she turned 25, Leo was last week’s laughing stock.
As far back as 2014, Leo’s penchant for young, beautiful women was already a punchline at awards ceremonies. Tina Fey introduced Leo at the Golden Globes that year by saying: “And now, like a supermodel’s vagina, let’s all give a warm welcome to Leonardo DiCaprio.” At the 2020 Golden Globes, host Ricky Gervais said: “Leo DiCaprio attended the premiere [of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood] and by the end, his date was too old for him. Even Prince Andrew is like: ‘Come on, mate’.”
While at the Oscars this year, Amy Schumer joked that Leo had done so much for climate change, leaving behind a ‘cleaner, greener planet for his … girlfriends’. There’s another joke suggesting that as women’s brains are fully mature at the age of 25, it might actually be the women who are doing the dumping, not Leo.
Even if the stories about him only dating women under the age of 25 are true, so what? I know a woman who won’t date a man if he doesn’t have a salary over a certain figure. I also know a man who won’t date women under 5’7”. We all have our foibles. And more importantly, we all have the right to choose who we have relationships with based on our own personal criteria.
Can we assume that Leo is nice to his girlfriends? Probably. His relationships with these younger women seem to last several years and he adopted two dogs with Morrone, so there clearly was some level of commitment there. Can we assume they know what they are getting into?
I refer your attention to the viral Reddit chart. So why are we so concerned about his dating habits? Why are women calling him ‘gross’ for only dating younger women? Is it because we older women indirectly feel a little devalued by the emphasis his relationships seem to place on youth? Perhaps.
But that’s nothing new in a society that prizes youth so highly that women are considered past it by the time they hit 40. Or is it, as some have argued, to do with the power imbalance? The older DiCaprio gets, the wider the age gap gets between him and his under-25 girlfriends, and his fame and status surely imbalances the dynamic, giving him the upper hand in relationships with young women just starting out in their careers and life. They might not necessarily feel like equals in such a relationship. Fair enough.
I’m not here to defend an ageing man’s sexual or relationship choices, but I do feel there are ways of making all of the above points without reverting to damaging outdated ways of publicly ridiculing and mocking people.
The coverage of DiCaprio’s relationship breakup reminded me of nothing more than that nasty noughties-era media coverage of celebrities, the type that gloried in waist bulges and underarm sweat patches and missing wedding rings on ring fingers. For all we know, Leo’s pathological dating of young women is his way of denying the ageing process, or encroaching mortality. Or maybe, and forgive the crudity of this hypothesis, maybe he just likes young, beautiful women.
Whether we like the pattern or not, by constantly ribbing DiCaprio, and awaiting with slavering anticipation the arrival of the 25th birthday of each consecutive girlfriend, our behaviour is probably the more questionable one.
As a culture, we are always changing, always redefining what is OK and what’s not OK. It used to be OK to ask couples when they were going to settle down and have a baby, for example. Now, most of us wouldn’t dream of asking someone if they had children, never mind if they were planning to. Our awareness of what’s private, what’s personal, has evolved. Perhaps that awareness might eventually evolve even further to include other people’s relationships.
Who and how we date, within the realm of consenting adults, shouldn’t really be anyone’s business. We should remember that while DiCaprio might be a cliché, he is also still a person. And, perhaps more importantly, if we’re really so concerned about them, we should remember that the young women he dates are people too.
