PLATELL’S PEOPLE: Yes, Madonna toyboys are fun but not if you value your dignity

Had it not been for her recent facelift, which seems to have left her features frozen, even Madonna might have raised a mocking eyebrow at her latest choice of partner: 6-foot-4, 17-inch boxer Josh Popper, who is 35 years her junior. she.

Popper trains people to box at a New York gym and is believed to have met the Like A Virgin star while training one of his sons.

Well, Madonna, 64, is no virgin when it comes to seducing much, much younger men – Popper is still in the long line of hot young toys the superstar has dated. In her defense, she says: ‘I didn’t choose to be in a relationship with a younger man. That’s just what happened, that’s the romantic in me.

Romance? Or the reckless idea that you are ageless and endlessly attractive to men half your age?

Before we mock her for this, let’s remember that no one raises an eyebrow when men date much younger women. Maybe Madonna has just turned the tables and is showing us that older, wealthier women can be catnip to aspiring young men.

But there’s a catch, and I know it because I’ve been there. After my marriage ended when I was 30, I was in a six-month relationship with someone half my age I met at the office. It lasted until he mistook Nelson Mandela for Mohammad Ali, sputtering in his defense that they were both ‘black men fighting for freedom’.

Later, the attractive young man from Eastern Europe who fell in love with me, or rather my salary, brought nothing, loved the heavy metal band Metallica, thought the Beatles were bugs and Bob’s Like a Rolling Stone Dylan was written by Mick Jagger.

The sad truth is that Madonna hasn’t yet realized, as I finally did, that a healthy relationship for middle-aged women is one with a man of a similar age with shared experiences. Men who know that Dire Straits is not a conflict in the Middle East.

The photos of her clutching her new Popper toy don’t make her look younger and more empowered, just a little tragic and old. As Rod Stewart sang in his hit Maggie May: “The morning sun when it’s on your face really shows your age, but that doesn’t bother me, in my eyes, you are everything.” Until you are nothing to him.

The idea that you are as young as the man you feel is a myth. Toyboys are fun, Madonna, but they come at a price, especially for your dignity.

Photos of her clutching her toys don’t make her look younger and more empowered, just a little tragic and old. Pictured: Madonna with her ex-boyfriend Andrew Darnell

harry’s mistake

The King has reportedly decided to evict Harry and Meghan from Frogmore Cottage after learning of his son’s attacks on Camilla in the Spare book.

Which goes to show just how goofy Harry is: Charles made it clear in 1999, when he first appeared publicly with Camilla, that she was “non-negotiable” and would always be by his side.

After being expelled from a women’s prison, trans woman double rapist Isla Bryson will serve her sentence in a men’s prison. The next thing we hear from her is when she complains about her blonde wig, mascara and acrylic nails being denied her human rights.

westminster wars

After the disclosure of his private WhatsApp messages revealing errors in judgment during Covid, an outraged Matt Hancock (pictured right) says he is “hugely disappointed” by the “mass betrayal and breach of trust”. He maybe he now he knows how Martha feels, his abandoned wife of 15 years.

When Labor MP Betty Boothroyd became the first woman Speaker of the House of Commons in 1992, her party claimed it had broken the glass ceiling for women in politics. Three decades later, no Labor Party leader has been a woman, while the Tories have had three women as Prime Ministers.

Leveling Up secretary Michael Gove wants to punish parents whose children miss school by cutting their child benefits. What, make the most dysfunctional families in society even poorer and hungrier? I thought we had put an end to the nasty Tory Party.

Paula the fast worker

Some wonder if a new documentary about Paula Yates will be true to her heady life. When asked how long it took her and INXS singer Michael Hutchence to “get going” after interviewing him on his Big Breakfast show, she laughed “five minutes” – in the Green Room. Which sounds pretty good: a taxi driver who told me that he had picked the couple up at the Savoy Hotel said that within minutes they were having sex in the back of his taxi.

Facing accusations of betraying Matt Hancock by posting his WhatsApp messages, Isabel Oakeshott says: “There’s a lot I can say about his behavior that I’m not going to, at least at this stage, because it wouldn’t be pretty.” .’ Isabel must take care of her, the ex-wife of her current boyfriend, Richard Tice, may have something to say about her that would not be nice.

jude is hooked

Before playing Captain Hook in Disney’s Peter Pan & Wendy, Jude Law says, “Part of childhood is the nightmares and fears we all have, and Hook embodies that.”

As the father of seven children from four different mothers who split their time between their respective families, Law may have given his own children nightmares. Feed the crocodile!

Great to see Sheridan Smith receiving rave reviews for her Shirley Valentine one-man show. Should we care about the travails of a middle-aged woman who questions her mundane life, her banal commitments, and her rebellion against her? Well, only a man would ask that question.

The spy who screwed up

MI5 boss Ken McCallum (pictured right) apologizes for missing opportunities that could have prevented Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi from killing 22 pop fans.

It’s a photo setting for Q of James Bond, the geeky widget inventor from 007, played by Ben Whishaw.

The difference is that it deals with real lives, while Bond is fiction.

After gleeful reports that Jeremy Clarkson had been fired from the upcoming series of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, ITV has made it clear that “Clarkson has not been cancelled.” Why would he, given the additional millions of viewers he’s gained since he took over that tired old show?

A high school in Worcester has covered the mirrors in the girls’ bathrooms with signs warning them that wearing makeup is akin to addiction, adding that boys would prefer “natural beauty”. She tries to tell that to Cleopatra, lover of Roman leaders Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, who never appeared in public without a full face slap.

Let’s see justice for Auriol

The visually impaired and disabled Auriol Gray (pictured right) protested with a cyclist riding on the sidewalk, causing him to fall into the path of a passing car.

A terrible tragedy, yes. But Gray has been given three years for manslaughter despite the fact that the law states that sidewalks are for pedestrians, not bicyclists who now seem to think they rule our streets and byways.

She is appealing her sentence and if there is any justice, she will win.

Releasing his new album Subtract, Ed Sheeran reveals his agony of mental health, calling it “a trap door in my soul.” Yes, he’s had a rough year after the death of his friend Jamal, his wife had a tumor during her pregnancy, and he had a court case for a false plagiarism claim against her. But isn’t it a bit strange when your personal angst is used in this way to promote your latest record?

My moggie Ted has just recovered from learning that during the lockdowns, ministers considered killing all 11 million cats in the country for fear of cat-to-human transmission of covid, even though there was only one case in all. the world.

Shameless Cattismo, he calls it, as dog-loving conservatives would never consider a mass slaughter of their prized dogs.