In a series called Mondo Bullshittio, let’s talk about some of the most glaring hypocrisies and faux pas in pop culture… and all that it affects.
While it might have actually taken longer than expected for Mary-Kate Olsen to realize she had married an aging misogynist in the form of Olivier Sarkozy (oui, the half-brother of ex-president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy), she picked a rather inconvenient time to invoke the power of celebrity to speed along her divorce process. Making the mistake of sticking around NYC (like so many) after the macabre incident of 2008 in which Heath Ledger’s massage therapist called her twice after discovering him dead in his apartment before contacting the police (therefore getting Olsen involved in all manner of questioning), Mary-Kate has found herself in the midst of a cliche battle in the town: one centered on real estate.
Specifically, Olivier has stated, to paraphrase Mariah Carey, “How ‘bout you get the fuck out?” Mary-Kate isn’t quite ready, blaming certain extenuating circumstances of a pandemic on her inability to do so. Looking evermore like the daughter Fiona Apple secretly gave up for adoption, the wizened and withered aesthetic Mary-Kate has striven to perfect by smoking cigarettes as though she’s got the same immunity to their effects as an actual French woman, has seemed only to augment during this “trying” time. One in which Olivier is effectively kicking her out of their (read: his) apartment, thereby “forcing” her to file for a divorce because she can’t meet his May 18 deadline as a result of stay-at-home guidelines currently in place in the city (of course, none of this would be an issue if she was slumming it in Wisconsin). By getting divorce proceedings pushed through, an automatic legal protection would set in that prevents Olivier from getting rid of her personal property. And so with divorce filings halted in the world’s divorce capital, Mary-Kate expects the special treatment befitting the former star of a schlock-y 90s TV show (with hindsight, one imagines the fictional Horsin’ Around to have been more watchable than Full House). And why? Because she needs her things? It certainly isn’t because she’s lacking for a place to stay. She’s not, in the end, “homeless.”
Granted, Mary-Kate probably has all manner of expensive couture and jewelry peppered throughout the presumably massive premises (the lease of which Olivier terminated apparently without Mary-Kate’s knowledge, but like, does that mean one can assume she’s not paying for that shit anyway in order for this to go undetected?). At the same time, her claims that it isn’t “safe” to move doesn’t really check out. When you’re a celebrity, or just a person of means, you can pay for things to be done safely. You can move your material possessions to a private storage unit… in an SUV (see? no worry of having to use the subway). You can move them to one of the many other residences you probably have “squirreled away” in Los Angeles. You can take a private plane to any one of these other residences.
The claim of Mary-Kate crying “not safe” feels like Trump only using coronavirus as an excuse when he doesn’t want to grant sanctuary to people being held in migrant detention centers. Playing the card when it suits. And honestly, Olivier might be a psycho, but does he really have the balls to get rid of her shit? It sounds like an idle threat that, at worst, would result in him telling the movers and the maids to take what they want of his anorexic slore of an ex-wife’s possessions. Things that, let’s be honest, can probably be replaced. For one doesn’t imagine Mary-Kate keeping many personal effects of sentimental value is a milieu as cold and impersonal as New York itself (which is possibly why she still chooses to continue to live there… it matches her aura).
On the silver lining side of all this, Grimes, one can only hope, will not actually get married to Elon Musk after looking upon this cautionary tale. For as you’ll remember, a certain photo of Grimes and Elon with his son in 2018 felt like a Bizarro World version of Mary-Kate and Olivier. Maybe Grimes could avoid the inevitable fate of a complicated divorce if she takes heed of what’s happening to Mary-Kate now. Then again, it seems to be that marrying a diabolical rich daddy type is what a waif requires to wake up and unearth what a prickhead he actually is. Meanwhile, we at least can take comfort in the fact that, no matter how all of this turns out (with Mary-Kate’s white girl privilege likely shining through to secure that emergency divorce), “bowls and bowls filled with cigarettes” will remain one of the most immortal sentences ever uttered in the annals of pop culture and weddings thereof.
