Simpson-Romo Rift Draws Fire, Relief
Breakup of Singer, NFL Star Points Out Pitfalls of Celebrity Romance
Jul 17, 2009
When the Dallas Cowboys’ quarterback loaded the erstwhile star of her own reality TV show (Newlyweds) onto the express train to Dumpsville earlier this month, denizens of both the sports and showbiz worlds broke the sound barrier in the rush to register their opinions.
Romo Dumped Singer on Eve of Her Birthday
Some foamed at the mouth over the timing of the breakup – good grief, Jessica was about to turn 29 the next day – reckoning it the relationship equivalent of a quarterback risking an interception in the dying seconds, when a more prudent course would be to take the snap and drop to one knee to secure the win. Bad form all around, they said.
Still in all, Simpson, for her tender years, has occupied Splitsville once before, and much, much more publicly. Didn’t Jessica and Nick Lachey show each other the door after months of vehemently denying to the tabloids that there was any trouble in Paradise?
Both Busy with Their Careers
Speculation, of course, ran rampant as to the cause of the schism. Both were busy with their careers – her thing being a new show called The Price of Beauty – and the logistics of working out a long-distance relationship no longer squared up. Gossip girls of all stripes let it slip out that Romo was seen partying in Los Angeles the next day with a bevy of twenty-something babes.
Cowboys’ Fans Called her “Yoko Romo”
Football fans in Dallas, of course, cheered news of the Romo-Simpson wedge, permanent or not, if only sotto voce. Many who had seen photos of the couple together as the Cowboys were manufacturing a playoff run last year were a little leery, and quick to blame the honey-haired singer for their pivot’s failure to complete the run when it went a-glimmer. Some wags opined that Jessica was an uncalled-for distraction during the NFL season, dubbing her “Yoko Romo”.
In conclusion, anyone…ANYONE… who has ever tried to keep a relationship together knows firsthand how difficult it is, what with demands of job, children and community pressing in on it. The difficulties must be multiplied when that relationship takes place in a fish bowl. Public people can logically be likened to flowers, but for a relationship to work, the flower needs a gardener, with each partner taking turns to nurture the other. If one suspects the other of getting too much sunshine while the former is getting none, it may be the beginning of the end.
Perhaps Tony and Jessica can lesson from the words of sportswriter Jimmy Cannon, when he explained why Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe put an end their marriage in the 1950s. “It’s impossible for a man to succeed,” Jimmy wrote in his column, “at TWO national pastimes.”
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