I was unfaithful but at least I was honest about it – Adam Levine’s excuses add insult to infidelity says Ulrika Jonsson
THINGS do have a habit of coming back and biting you in the ar*e.
I know this from personal experience. I once told Piers Morgan he could shoot me if I ever married again — and then I did.
Thankfully, he didn’t. Now it’s time for Adam Levine to squirm.
In an unearthed interview with the married lead singer of US band Maroon 5, he conceded he was not sure about monogamy.
Fast forward to this week and what started as a trickle of rage is fast turning into a dam burst as women line up to accuse him of infidelity.
Hell, we know, hath no fury like five women (so far) scorned.
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Rumours have been gathering with such pace that he’s now been forced to concede that he may have behaved “inappropriately” at times and “crossed the line” by sending “flirty messages”.
But he denies infidelity. Well, he would, wouldn’t he. His accusers beg to differ.
Sumner Stroh, the young model he allegedly had a year-long affair with; a student; a comedian; and his yoga teacher say they all received dirty texts from him.
They do not hint at “minor misdemeanours” but claim outright that extra-marital activities took place.
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Levine denies it all, issuing a statement that his family are all that matter to him.
Well, that must be nice for them to hear. But there are so many questions.
Why do people find it so hard to be honest, call a spade a spade and admit to being unfaithful?
With Levine, the question then has to be: What does he actually consider infidelity?
Is it sex or is it sexting? Is it ever OK to send a smutty, flirty message to someone when you’re in a committed relationship?
I suppose that depends on how committed you are. But seriously.
Why do some people minimise their actions, downplay and reduce their behaviour, and insist on believing their own narrative which somehow excuses their conduct?
For me, that is committing a whole other infidelity — with the truth itself.
Telling fibs to all those around you, then lying to yourself. That’s a whole bucketful of dishonesty.
I was unfaithful in my first marriage. No excuses.
For me, the infidelity was a blunt instrument. It was very black and white.
Those around me — in a misplaced act of sympathy and an attempt to protect me — tried to convince me that “it wasn’t really infidelity” because no sex had taken place.
I had “merely” been unfaithful of the heart because I fancied someone else.
It may have been well-intended but regardless of where the line was drawn, I crossed it.
For me there was no grey area. I reunited with my husband briefly but the scars did not heal and I will never, ever go to that treacherous and faithless place again.
For some, mainly men, there seem to be different levels of unfaithfulness.
Just a drunken snog. Just a drunken shg. Just a flirty, sexy text — it meant nothing.
Well, tell that to the person on the receiving end who must be furious at being dismissed and wounded for being used as “just” something minor and transient.
All for the sake of someone salvaging their own marriage or relationship.
And talk about adding insult to infidelity. Levine really took things to a new level by asking Sumner, the model he was “entangled” with, if he could name his wife’s unborn child after her. Ouch!
At which point was that even clever? Or empathetic? Did he think it was a sweet dedication to the girl he was flirting with behind his wife’s back? Yuck. How warped is that?
No one has the right to reduce someone else’s lived experience to just an accidental side dish — solely so they can get off scot-free, to protect their own interests and then to hell with everyone else.
And all the while, Levine’s wife Behati Prinsloo is standing on the sidelines, belly swollen with their third child, deciding what tolerance she has for infidelity.
She either accepts his actions as par for the course or she breaks away.
Easier said than done with another baby on the way.
I frequently tell my children that the lying is often more damaging than the deed itself.
Lying doubles the deceit and amplifies the dishonesty. It’s insulting.
I’m no angel. I might tend towards little white lies rather than great, big, painful untruths because downright lies mean I’m not being honest with myself and that’s no way to live.
Honesty, after all, begins at home.
Commitment can be a fickle friend. But make an enemy of fidelity and honesty and you’ll have more than Beautiful Mistakes (as Maroon 5 once sang about) to deal with.
Too risky touse trouble word ‘trans’
IN a park in Brighton this week a female transgender activist turns to a man holding a baby and screams: “You’re raising a little fascist!”
She then goes on to call the man a “f**king fascist”. It had all the charm of a bucolic, early autumn day in southern England.
These are volatile times, indeed. Only a couple of weeks ago, Sussex police felt compelled to look into menacing messages sent by pro-trans activists to a feminist campaigner known as Kellie-Jay Keen, because they were urging others “to fight her by any means you see fit, and wear masks to do it”.
No subtlety in that threat, methinks. Keen (also known as Posie Parker) had organised an event to celebrate “ordinary women and girls” which she sees as standing up for women.
Needless to say, her actions attracted the ire of trans-activists.
All this is set against the backdrop of trans rights and the ongoing debate over biologically born women’s rights compared to those who have transitioned from a different gender.
In fact, what started out as a debate and a discussion is fast becoming a war.
Everything from arguments about “gender-neutral” toilets at The Globe Theatre in London and deciding to make Joan of Arc non-binary is creating rage in both camps.
Such has been the extremism created that “trans” is now a toxic word.
Despite my own reasonably equitable beliefs, I find myself skirting around the word – trying to find different terminology lest I offend anyone.
And my views, I don’t believe, come from a bad place.
The point is that calling someone a fascist, or threatening violence against those who don’t agree with your ideology, proves that somewhere along this volatile road the ability to debate and discuss has been completely lost.
Controlling the narrative by fear, intimidation and fundamentalism is no way to operate.
And as I always recall being told in the early days of my career, you can’t negotiate with a fundamentalist.
Joke’s surely on the bloke
DON’T make me laugh. A recent study of 149 long-term couples has found that men think they’re funnier than us birds.
Well, that’s funny for a start. Apparently, fellas make more jokes and then rate them as superior to their female partners’ gags.
Well, they would do that, wouldn’t they.
When they first meet a woman, guys are more likely to try to be funny and reel off the jokes, whereas women will sit back, listen and judge.
The study doesn’t tell us why, but I wonder if it’s because men hide their awkwardness and embarrassment underneath dad jokes or lame quips?
Or is it because life is easier for men (!), or that they are just better at backing themselves in EVERYTHING they do?
Maybe they have more confidence and arrogance . . .
Apparently, people are happier when they rate their partner funnier than themselves. Well, ain’t that the truth.
No one wants to be in a relationship with a misery. I may have been in the past and it’s a killer.
Regarding long-term relationships, the study says that women “lose or lessen” their tendency to respond to humour.
That might be because once the initial laughter starts to fade, they are left listening to murderous snoring, unbearable belching and interminable moaning about man flu.
And that just isn’t funny.
Way to make a girl feel special, Jon
ACTOR Jon Hamm says it’s taken a lot of “time and therapy” to get to a place where he can think about his future with his girlfriend of two years, Anna Osceola, and to finally be open to the possibility of marriage and kids.
Hamm, 51, lost his mother when he was ten years old, so it’s understandable that the prospect of opening up to love has been a tricky road for him to travel.
But he just sounds a tad too reluctant for my liking.
I’d feel rubbish if I was his girlfriend and had to “wait” for him to get his head around us being a couple, settling down and potentially starting a family.
Who wants to drag a man kicking and screaming into a life of commitment and fatherhood?
Call me impatient, but I wouldn’t be found waiting.
I know I’m an uber-romantic. I need a guy to be so bursting with conviction and belief that he wants to be with me in order for me to have absolute faith.
I’d hate the prospect of feeling that I had to “convince” him to be with me.
I know there are no guarantees in life and even when two people are eager to make a life together, things do not always work out.
However, the idea that one person is already starting out with doubts sends a shiver down my spine.
You’re fighting a losing game from the start.
It’s like those couples who are together for years then suddenly break up because they discovered one of them doesn’t want kids.
Why was that never part of the conversation at the beginning?
They were never on the same page in the first place.
Hopefully Hamm is in the right headspace for whatever it is his girlfriend wants and needs.
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Otherwise, I suspect, he’ll always be known as a commitment-phobe.
And that would make him about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike.