KATE SPICER: The sexist reaction to Keanu Reeves dating a mature woman is shocking

A couple wraps their arms around each other and moves closer for a heartfelt kiss. She tilts her head and closes her eyes; his is open, looking at her with protective devotion.

They seem happy in each other’s company, clearly lovers and good friends, comfortable with each other and in their own skin.

So far, so moving. But anyway, so what? The red carpet shot published in the Mail this week is by no means exceptional… except he’s Keanu Reeves, the 58-year-old movie star – and his girlfriend, Alexandra Grant, is not only 50, but has also grey hair.

Still, every time a new photo of the couple surfaces, shock — even horror — is expressed.

People can’t seem to get over the fact that a heartthrob is dating a grown woman, rather than a lithe young girl with puffy lips and a creepy immobile face. (Grant’s gray hair is always mentioned in the press coverage.)

What bothers people about this relationship? Is it their similar ages? Is it that while she’s a pretty woman, she’s not conventionally pretty with a button nose? Nor does she appear to have undergone cosmetic alterations to make her look like every other woman in Hollywood.

Grant may be a successful artist who is trilingual, teaches, and regularly does good philanthropy. But where are the breasts, hips and glossy long hair that suggest she could squeeze out five kids in as many years and do the Pirelli calendar?

That juicy, youthful, fertile look that so many women strive for long after that certain evolutionary advantage is gone.

Because it’s a universally acknowledged truth that a hot rich man needs a younger, hotter woman forever. Unless she’s been married to him for ages, we’ve been indoctrinated to believe that a middle-aged woman just doesn’t suit a middle-aged male icon.

I admit I am a serial killer. If I ever see a male celebrity with a “normal” woman, I am amazed and almost shocked. It’s not that I’m against it, just that it’s so rare, like albino tigers or Lib Dem MPs. But at the sight of another old bitch posing with his ultra-polished arm candy, I just sigh.

I blame male vanity. Insecure men need validation of their own meaning, so young, hot babes are just as much an accessory to their egos as big watches, noisy cars and all that roar about their belongings.

According to statistics, women stress about going gray, men about getting bald. But when women go gray, they don’t date someone half their age.

High-profile men like Keanu Reeves, who refuse to conform to these common standards, are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Pierce Brosnan, 69, is another. He recently defended his wife of 30 years, Keely Shaye Smith, 59, against fat-shaming trolls saying, “Friends offered her surgery to reduce her weight. But I love every curve of her body. She is the most beautiful woman in my eyes… and I am very proud of her, and I always try to be worthy of her love.”

Brosnan and Reeves have something in common that could explain why they are among the more evolved males of the species. Brosnan’s first wife died of cancer, while Keanu’s ex, Jennifer Syme, died in a car accident in 2001 at the age of 28, shortly after they lost their first child to stillbirth. The tragedy and his grief further distanced him from the appearance-obsessed madness of Hollywood.

I met Keanu Reeves a few times in the 1990s when I was researching a piece for a magazine. It was a crushingly embarrassing story that required me to act like a superfan (stalker, more like that). My editor said go out and meet him, which I eventually did.

The man I found clearly didn’t believe in the hype surrounding his star career and longed for a normal life. I’m not surprised that today he feels no need to assert his manhood by having a baby by his side. He is an oasis in a desert of emotionally shallow male narcissists.

Of course, if women were a little braver about looking their age, men could be forced to change.

Alexandra Grant attended a celebrity dinner party in Beverly Hills shortly after their relationship was revealed in 2019, saying that beauty is “something you can see with your eyes closed.”

I wish – but it’s a commendable feeling and it went down well with the stellar attendees. Yet none of them had turned their hair gray.

Demi Moore, then in her late fifties, had Morticia Addams-esque jet black hair. The rest were in their late forties: Gwyneth Paltrow with quiet, tasteful East Coast American honey hair, Kate Hudson and celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe, both with West Coast sexier blonde locks that captivate youth.

Because let’s not pretend that when we see gray-haired female stars on the red carpet, we don’t notice. We do – and we conduct a mental assessment of their sex appeal. Gray hair screams that you’re sexually past your fertile prime (Model Erin O’Connor went gray for a while but I notice she’s gone black again. You wonder, has the work dried up?)

It’s still not really okay until you’re old old. The truth is that many of us will die with hair that shouldn’t go gray.

My mousy brown hair was red when I saw the first gray hair, then luscious brown, then blonde. Endless shades of blonde. The reasons I let go of the facade were cost, time and the fact that I found it increasingly difficult to be convinced by it myself.

Giving up on hair dye was, in a sense, also giving up my ambition to achieve textbook sexual attractiveness. I’d almost say, ‘I give up. Yes, everyone, look at me, my ovaries are useless. Maybe I am too!’

My friend – a younger man if you are interested – just let me get on with life, but every once in a while he might ask me if I want to dye my hair again – one time, when he was drunk, he asked even if I wanted to have a boob job. No thanks, I said.

Is he joking? He says he likes my gray hair and the way my body has changed, but I’m not sure what to think. We women live in a world where we are never good enough. Maybe we’re worse than men at judging our looks by what we see on red carpets.

Indeed, our reaction to Keanu and his girlfriend Alexandra tells us so much about our own prejudices and nothing about the happy couple. One of Alexandra’s circle, the writer Elise Loehnen, has said that her friend “is so much more than her hair color and her famous life partner.” Eliza is right. Alexandra looks like someone who thinks she’s enough.

What’s really shocking about a photo of a beloved over-50s is that we – including me – give a fig.

Despite all the people’s talk about equality, we barely got to this debate. In Hollywood, it’s a little more accepted that women look older and grayer, but no matter how many kisses Keanu and Alexandra exchange on the red carpet, our attitude to aging naturally is still one of disgust.