Dear reader: The things I know about Irish celebrity Maura Higgins could be written on the back of a postcard.
She is, as the photo above would tend to suggest, a good looking woman. She became famous for being a contestant on the UK reality TV show “love island”, and has won some praise for having a “sex positive” attitude towards matters carnal, apparently happy to openly rate her various lovers’ performances in the bedroom to her own mother. Recently, she had a new reality television outing on “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here”.
And now she is, per the Daily Mail, going through a horrible time of things altogether because she was spotted kissing a married man – one Danny Jones, former lead singer of Boyband McFly – who is also a celebrity and also appeared on “I’m a celebrity get me out of here”. Apparently, the married man’s wife, Georgia, is none too pleased, and nor are thousands of people – let’s face it, thousands of women – online who have decided to devote some time to denouncing Ms Higgins and standing in solidarity with the jilted wife.
By all accounts, Ms. Higgins has gone into hiding, while her social media pages and those of the other two parties to this smooch-triangle, have been filled with tens of thousands of people (women) offering their judgment, scorn, support, and opinions. Ms Higgins, per the Mail, is “distraught” over the whole affair.
The reason I am writing this is because one of those commenting women, somebody called Chessie King, wrote the following on the Instagram account of the jilted wife, Georgia Jones:
“Chessie King added: ‘Absolutely adore you, we’re alllll rallied round you.’”
Something about that sentence, I have to say, made me sit up and pay attention. The comment, you’ll note, is actually self-praise. It’s not about the incident or the people involved at all. It is “look how great we all are, for supporting you”.
Why have all these people inserted themselves into other people’s private lives?
Before we answer that, a little bit of moralising on infidelity: It is real, it happens, it should be avoided wherever possible, and it’s not really any of your business unless you are a party to it or one of the parties betrayed by it. By all accounts, what happened in this case is that Ms. Higgins and Mr. Jones shared what the Daily Mail calls “a drunken kiss” in public. That fact might lead one to speculate that they had shared substantially more than a drunken kiss in private, but there’s no certainty to that or any evidence for it: As far as we know, two people got drunk and smooched while one of them was married, and that was the end of it.
One of the reasons that I would never trade my life for that of a celebrity is this sort of thing: Human beings are messy and foolish, and celebrities tend to become celebrities because they are messier and more foolish even than the average person. What’s more, they all share an appetite for fame and adulation. With fame and adulation comes ridiculous scrutiny of things that would be a footnote in a normal person’s life.
In this instance, by all accounts, an internet army comprised primarily of women have decided that Maura Higgins is the villain, for essentially becoming the third party in another celebrity’s marriage. The jilted wife is the heroine, and the male participant apparently bears very little blame.
These kinds of thing happen every day, in marriages (and indeed in non-marriages that are still committed relationships) right across the world. Indeed, I asked Grok (Elon Musk’s very good AI programme) what percentages of marriages experience infidelity at some stage. The answer? Almost half. Those of us who are married and avoid it should be grateful, not smug.
It seems to me, dear reader, that poor old Maura Higgins, sinner though she may be, is paying a disproportionately heavy price in terms of public shame for her indiscretion, and that the real villains of the piece are the army of internet commenters who have taken it upon themselves to insert themselves into somebody else’s marriage.
How the couple in question decide to resolve this is, surely, a matter for them alone? It will be dependent on a whole range of matters that the public simply doesn’t have knowledge of. Was this a first offence? Was it a drunken snog, or something more? Was it just physical, or were deep feelings involved? Can she forgive him, or has he fundamentally broken trust?
“Rallying around” in a situation like this is something that you do for a friend, somebody whose situation you know and whose situation might be tangibly improved by your moral support. “Rallying around” is not something you do for a celebrity. What you are actually doing is inserting yourself as an unwanted character in somebody else’s life.
Maura Higgins and her married beau are not the first, nor will they be the last, people to experience attraction outside the boundaries of marriage or monogamy. They failed to stay within the lines. Unless they are entirely callous, they will both be feeling awful about the consequences for the jilted wife. They do not need acres of media coverage, or busybodies on Instagram, to police their behaviour.
It is funny, I think, how often we are told we live in an era of compassion and kindness, and how often that compassion and kindness is expressed as wanton cruelty towards others who we do not know at all.