What is not to adore about Margot Robbie, who rose from the Aussie TV soap Neighbours to star in Hollywood blockbusters such as The Wolf Of Wall Street and Barbie, a film in which she personified female solidarity and emancipation?
The girl born in remote rural Queensland is now a happily married new mum with a net worth of around $70million. And good for her.
Now she’s promoting her next movie Wuthering Heights, an adaptation of Emily Bronte’s book about the demented and destructive love between Cathy and Heathcliff on the wild Yorkshire Moors.
On the American TV show Jimmy Kimmel Live! – which has nearly 2million viewers – she boasted that she celebrated the release of the movie by inviting 20 close girlfriends over to watch the show.
And she said the theme of this very private screening was ‘Victorian Slutty’ in homage to the Gothic novel, written in 1847.
Which left us Margot fans bewildered. Why would this proud feminist want to be involved in any celebration that involved sluts or sluttiness?
But it got worse, judging by her description of the bachelorette party as ‘the most unhinged experience of my life’. She wore a virginal white corset and lace while her girlfriends dressed in black lace and corsets.
Margot Robbie’s girlfriends threw her a Wuthering Heights-themed bachelorette party which she told Jimmy Kimmel was ‘the most unhinged experience of my life’
The ‘Victorian slutty’ theme meant the women all got drunk and spent most of the evening half-dressed salivating over Margot’s undeniably sexier-than-any-man-has-a-right-to-be co-star Jacob Elordi, who plays Heathcliffe in the movie.
A word of warning to Margot, writes Amanda Platell. You may be Hollywood’s darling now, but your ‘slutty’ party was a serious misstep
Margot on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on which she revealed her bachelorette party
The women all got drunk she says – no criticism there – and spent most of the evening lusting over Margot’s co-star Jacob Elordi who plays Heathcliff in the movie and is undeniably sexier than any man has a right to be.
‘Twenty women were like frothing at the mouth, like rabid dogs, they were screaming so much,’ Margot told Jimmy Kimmel, adding: ‘If he walked in right now, I think they would eat him.’
Salivating over Jacob? What japes, you might think.
Yet is it not deeply demeaning and insulting to him, especially in this #MeToo world?
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Imagine if the tables were turned and Jacob gave an interview to two million prime-time American viewers saying he’d invited all his mates around to watch the movie and the lads had a ‘stag party’, dressed up as male predators.
And that all the blokes got drunk and started drooling over Margot in the movie, saying if she walked in the room they would ‘eat her’.
It would have caused outrage among the sisterhood. Jacob would have been cancelled, he’d never work again in Hollywood, shamed forever on social media and cast out by the La-La land power kings.
We fans, too, would be rightly appalled. So why is it OK for female superstars like Margot to objectify men, to treat them like sex objects, when if it was a man saying he wanted to ‘eat her’, it would be seen as repulsive misogyny.
Margot may be Hollywood’s darling now, but her ‘Slutty’ party was a serious misstep. If it was a desperate bid to garner attention for her $80million movie it has blown up in her face.
Perhaps she was driven to such measures by the fact that some critics have predicted Wuthering Heights will be a dud. It is, after all directed by the seemingly sex-obsessed Emerald Fennell, famous for those excruciating sex scenes in the 2023 film Saltburn, also starring Jacob Elordi.
So, a word of warning, Margot. Emancipated Barbie would be ashamed of you selling your soul. No woman is a slut. But every woman can be a hypocrite.
Katie’s paid the price of fame
Despite two of his ex girlfriends warning he’s a money-grabbing fantasist, Katie Price is madly in love with new husband Lee Andrews. But has hubby done his homework on twice-bankrupted Katie who now earns from OnlyFans?
And would OK! offer even a fraction of the £2million they paid for her wedding to Peter Andre in 2005 for exclusive rights to pictures of the new Bride of Wildenstein?
After crashing out in the second round of the Australian Open, Emma Raducanu parts ways with her coach Francis Roig. Since winning the US Open in 2021 she’s never won a major. How long before her sponsors such as Dior and Tiffany realise she’s like Eddie the Eagle, a one-hit wonder?
Hero of the week is Cotswolds villager Tony Slater who, seeing local roads fill up with ‘fast litter’ thrown from cars, turned detective. He picked up a McDonald’s bag, found a receipt inside with details of the time and place the meal was bought and got the local council to contact the branch which provided the details of the car. The driver turned out to be one of his neighbours who had to pay a £500 fine – although I doubt they consider Tony a hero.
Bruce song not up my Street
News that Bruce Springsteen has released a single usually makes the hearts of us fans soar, but his latest moribund dirge Streets of Minneapolis, written after the two ICE killings in the city, sounds as if it’s performed by a cheap tribute band. A noble cause but the song drew inevitable comparisons with his hit Streets of Philadelphia about the Aids crisis in the US which has killed 700,000. The new Streets is so bad Bruce must have written it dancing in the dark.
Sadly I couldn’t join those who attended Jilly Cooper’s memorial service yesterday as it was a choice between writing my column or honouring this extraordinary woman who wrote to me over 20 years… just as she did to all columnists, as I discovered after she died. Watching the service I was reminded of an encounter I had in my younger days at a party with Jilly’s beloved yet legendarily unfaithful husband Leo when he invited me to join him for a threesome, Jilly not included. Needless to say, I made my excuses and left.
Retired Detective Superintendent Stuart Clifton who caught serial baby-killer ‘Angel of Death’ Beverley Allitt, claims Lucy Letby is innocent and her conviction is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice this century. He says there is no persuasive evidence any of the babies Letby was convicted over were intentionally harmed. Hope for Letby – and yet unimaginable ongoing pain for the parents of the babies who died.
Joshua’s heartache
Boxer Anthony Joshua posts a video thanking those who sent him messages of support and love since the death of his two best friends Sina Ghami and Latif Ayodele in a car crash that he miraculously survived. ‘They were my brothers, my friends, my left, my right,’ he says tearfully. Hardly W.H. Auden’s ‘Stop All The Clocks’, but beautiful nonetheless.
Ray of sunshine weather girl Carol Kirkwood, 63, is quitting her BBC job after 28 years to spend more time with her husband Steve. Smart woman, she got a second chance at love after her first marriage ended and will not now join the army of 60-plus single women at home alone nursing their regrets.
Bezos bozos
Surely a moment to feel sorry for Mrs Sanchez Bezos. She raised eyebrows not just for her ill-fitting red suit when arriving for the Schiaparelli show in Paris clutching a £33,000 alligator handbag – and I don’t mean her leathery husband Jeff. But also because – quelle surprise! – the couple turned up in the same car as Vogue boss Anna Wintour. All was explained when we learned that Bezos billions are sponsoring Vogue’s Met Gala this year – proving you can buy access, but you can’t buy class.
Barry shows Starr quality
Rami Malek won an Oscar for playing Freddie Mercury in the movie Bohemian Rhapsody because he managed to look like him. Timothee Chalamet was nominated for one after his portrayal of Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. Yet pictures of Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr in the new Beatles films are laughable. Far from being the hard-partying, heavy-drinking, lady-loving, funny-as-hell Ringo, Keoghan looks more like a mincing Sixties hair stylist.
Maya Jama and her footballer boyfriend Ruben Dias are heartbroken after an ‘away day’ gang hit their £4million Cheshire home while she filmed Love Island in South Africa and he was in Manchester for the Galatasaray game. Horrible for them but why didn’t they realise every crook in the land would know they were away?
