Death to the Vampire Husband

Liz Hoggard
20 Jul 2009

When Amy Winehouse arrived at Gatwick, after flying in from St Lucia last week, we gasped. She looked fantastic. Almost the plump-faced Jewish princess of old. True she was crying — her divorce from vampire husband Blake was formalised on Thursday — but Winehouse fans will cheer that Fielder-Civil is finally out of her life.

Because the Vampire Husband is a dangerous beast. He knows the weakness of his prey. At 23 you may be a multi-platinum-selling star like Amy but you might still have low self-esteem. Vampire Husbands can sniff it from 100 paces.

Part bad boy, part Svengali, part Sylvia Plath's Daddy (“the boot in the face/the brute Brute heart”), he's there to help you navigate the complexities of fame. He's the one who loves you for who you truly are. He gives up his day job — if he ever had one — and becomes your backing singer/manager/roadie.

It's everything you dreamed of — but better. Yes, the drugs and self-harming are a bit worrying, his flat is borderline unpleasant. The sex is one-sided. He doesn't like your friends. But that's because he loves you.

And then it starts to tip. You get a glimpse of those fangs. At first it's just emotional putdowns, then it gets nastier. Because the VH is basically jealous of your talent. One night in a car on the way to a pre-Grammys party, you start arguing. He punches you in the face. When those appalling pictures of singer Rihanna, bruised and weeping, went round the world we couldn't believe such a feisty young woman would let herself become a victim.

But the capacity for delusion in young women — moneyed, independent, talented — can be scary. Sometimes worried parents can stage an intervention. When Britney married an old schoolfriend drunk in Las Vegas, the marriage was quickly annulled. It took a Herculean effort by Kate Moss's mother and her modelling agency to prise her free from part-time VH Pete Doherty. It was Oprah — no less — who begged Rihanna to dump abusive boyfriend Chris Brown.

And it's not just working-class girls who fall prey. German heiress Katrin Radmacher thought she was marrying an equal — French investment banker Nicolas Granatino. They signed a pre-nup. But when the marriage broke down, Granatino expected his ex-wife to foot the bill for his new student lifestyle, even though he was the heir to a multi-million-pound fortune.

Sometimes the VH relationship endures for years. It took Whitney Houston — finally pictured bright-eyed and beautiful in London this week — 17 years to break free from husband Bobby Brown. During her “lost decade”, when she was haggard and dishevelled, addicted to crack, Bobby was positively triumphant. He had the diva exactly where he wanted her.

Former model Jo Wood did it the other way round. She gave up her career and nurtured husband Ronnie Wood, 62, for 31 years until he traded her in for 20-year-old Russian waitress Ekaterina Ivanova. If you're a washed-up old rocker with a drink and drug problem, of course it's easier to set up a love nest with an impoverished East European (who is actually a dead ringer for your wife when she was younger) than go home and apologise — or check into rehab.

Escaping the VH has been the making of Jo. At 53, with a new wardrobe and social life, she looks dazzling. Recently she admitted, “The thing is, I spent so many years concentrating on Ronnie, dressing Ronnie, and looking after Ronnie, that suddenly I can now concentrate on me.” But she's far too classy to bitch.

She left all that to her older brother, artist Paul Karslake, who this week unveiled an oil painting of Ronnie depicted as a blood-sucking vampire. It's hilarious at all levels. A mahogany tanned Ronnie — himself a rather bad painter — is seen biting the snow-white neck of a blonde victim. In fact Karslake went to extreme lengths to create the painting, even using his own blood.
Let's hope Jo hangs it in the attic, Dorian Gray-style, to ward off future Vampire Husbands.