The normal women who got hate for dating Hollywood heartthrobs.

Celebrities dating "normal people" is one of those topics we're all fascinated by. How did they meet? Who introduced them? Where did this normie stumble across their famous partner? Why wasn't it us? You know the vibe.

But Mamamia's Laura Brodnik and Emily Vernem have noticed a nasty trend online. In a recent episode of The Spill, the co-hosts discussed the backlash that some women have received after the public deemed them "too ugly" to be in relationship with a conventionally attractive, Hollywood heartthrob. It doesn't "make sense" to them.

The topic is one that bubbles up from time to time when a Hollywood hunk starts dating a woman, usually someone who isn't in the public eye, who is considered "normal". But as Laura and Emily pointed out, it's not actually about the fact that they're "normal" women — it's about the way their looks are being perceived, and whether people think she's attractive enough for the Hollywood hunk.

We saw this double standard on full display when Zac Efron began dating Byron Bay waitress Vanessa Valladares in 2020.

Vanessa Valladares and Zac Efron dated for 10 months, before breaking up in April 2021. Images: Instagram /still_ness___ / Getty.

"They started dating and there was this whole story about how he was this huge Hollywood heartthrob who'd come to Byron Bay, he'd met this waitress at a café and now they'd fallen madly in love and they were together, and no one was questioning that — " Laura said.

"Because she was hot," Emily interjected.

" — Because she's a thin, young woman," Laura continued. "Everyone looked at her and was like, 'Oh, she's got a conventionally attractive face, she's what we would picture him with', and therefore no one was questioning, 'Should they be together?' No one thought it was weird that he was famous and she wasn't. They were like, 'This is a rom com, this is a love story'. Everyone was so invested and so behind it, and the only difference between her and these other women is that she looked like the person a Hollywood person should be dating."

But not every woman who lands herself a Hollywood heartthrob for a boyfriend is as lucky as Vanessa. Here are some of the normal women who got backlash for dating heartthrob celebs.

Listen to the full episode of The Spill. Story continues below.

Kate Tomas and Andrew Garfield.

Dr Kate Tomas has a Masters Degree in Philosophy of Religion, as well as a doctorate in Philosophical Theology from Oxford University. She hosts a podcast, The Friday Emails, works as a spiritual advisor online, and has nearly 18k followers on her TikTok alone. All of this is to say that she's inarguably very successful as an individual. But when she began dating Andew Garfield in March, she was met with a wave of online hate from Garfield's fans.

In fact, people have been so cruel online that Tomas was recently forced to deny accusations that she used witchcraft to seduce Garfield. For context, Tomas is a practicing witch who previously offered seduction classes, before online commenters concluded that she had used witchcraft to force Garfield into a relationship with her.

In an interview with London's Sunday Times, Tomas spoke about the vitriol she had received.

"F**king hell, nothing could prepare me for having literally thousands of women telling me I'm ugly, I'm unattractive, I'm less than in every conceivable way," she said of the "misogynistic nature" of the comments.

"It's frustrating that no matter how accomplished or impactful a woman is, it's always going to be more interesting if they are in a relationship with a man," she added.

Laura said that this is a good example of where we're at with Hollywood's beauty standards.

"If you are just an ordinary woman dating a man who seems attractive, you get accused of witchcraft, before you get accused of having a cute face and a nice personality. That's where we're at," she said.

Alexandra Grant and Keanu Reeves.

Alexandra Grant and Keanu Reeves. Image: Getty.

Another person who's received this kind of backlash and narrative is Alexandra Grant, who has been dating Keanu Reeves for five years. The couple knew each other for years as friends and colleagues before they started dating, but the scrutiny around their relationship intensified in 2019 when they made their red carpet debut as a couple.

It's not just that Grant received scrutiny, Laura said, but that Reeves was simultaneously being exalted for dating such a "normal" woman.

"They walked down to that carpet, and there was this kind of gasp across the world because they were like, 'He's dating HER?'" she recalled. "But even worse than that, because she has grey hair, they were like 'What could he possibly see in her, he's really lowered himself to date her', and 'What a nice guy', or 'What does she have over him?'"

Despite being nine years younger than Reeves, Grant's grey hair brought another Hollywood double standard around age gaps in relationships to light.

"If he had walked the carpet with a young, blonde woman 20 years younger than him, people would be like 'Ugh, classic Hollywood, that's fine'," Laura said. "But because this woman had grey hair, and she wasn't famous, and she wasn't this conventional bombshell that you'd see on a movie poster, there's always two schools of thought in this case, 'Oh, he's such a nice guy to see past her ugliness', even though she's not ugly at all and they seem very in love, or, 'What has she done to get him?'"

Deborra-Lee Furness and Hugh Jackman.

Deborra-Lee Furness and Hugh Jackman. Image: Getty.

Emily said that for us Aussies, Deborra-Lee Furness and Hugh Jackman seemed like "the perfect couple" before they announced their split in September 2023.

"We never saw it because Deborra is famous for us, but I remember there's been so many interviews where he's had to talk about his marriage in a way that's kind of convincing people that, 'Yes, I am in a happy marriage'," Emily said, adding that the American coverage of their relationship was "so gross" toward Furness after Jackman joined the X-Men franchise.

"And I remember when they divorced, people were like, 'This makes sense now. Of course they divorced', whereas we were shocked," she added.

Keely Shaye Brosnan and Pierce Brosnan.

Keely Shaye Brosnan and Pierce Brosnan. Image: Getty.

Keely Shaye Brosnan and Pierce Brosnan tied the knot back in 2001, and if the many paparazzi photos of them canoodling on beaches over the years since then are anything to go by, they're still very much in love.

A long and happy marriage with a Hollywood star can be an anomaly, though, and a Hollywood heartthrob happily growing old with his wife is even more rare. Photos of the couple now, versus when they first met, recently began circulating online.

"People went around and dug up photos of when they first got together, and because she was younger and she hadn't had children — and also, people's bodies change without having children, that's just a thing that happens — they were like, 'Oh, okay, so she WAS attractive when they first met'," Laura said. 

"There was like, this sigh of relief like, 'Oh, thank god we found the reason why Pierce Brosnan, James Bond, is with THIS woman'."

Jenny Slate and Chris Evans.

Jenny Slate and Chris Evans. Image: Getty.

Okay, so Jenny Slate isn't exactly a "normal" person, in the sense that she is also a very famous and successful comedian and actress in her own right. Still, when news broke that she was dating Chris Evans in 2016, Slate faced a barrage of questions about how she had managed to bag THE Captain America as her boyfriend. While Slate was able to laugh the questions off in public, the intense public scrutiny did weigh on her, and in February 2017, the couple called it quits.

Speaking to Vulture at the time, Slate said that Evans' level of fame and the impact of that attention eventually became too much for her.

"Chris is a very, very famous person," she said. "For him to go to a restaurant is totally different than for me to go. I sit in my window, and I say 'Hi' to people on the street. I have more freedom because I'm not Captain America."

Of the breakup, Slate added, "This is what I needed to do to feel normal. To be alone."

While the couple did briefly reconcile in November 2017, they weren't able to make it work, and split up for good after four months.

Emily and Laura noted that the level of scrutiny was most likely related to Slate not fitting the criteria for the kind of woman that society deems acceptable for someone like Evans to date.

"I remember people being like, 'Oh, she must be really, really funny'," Emily said.

"Yeah and people would say that to her!" Laura agreed. "There's interviews on red carpets of her where it's like, 'Oh, you must really make Chris laugh!' and she's like, 'Yeah, I guess! I mean, it's my job'. I think the vibe was, she never thought it was weird that he was interested in her, but she was made aware of it. They didn't date for that long, and it's probably because she was constantly being questioned about, 'So what do you think he sees in you?'

"The subtext of that is, 'Jenny Slate, super successful comedian actress, why is this hot man dating you when you're so ugly?'" Laura added.

Feature Image: Getty/Instagram.