At least she got revenge hot.Photo: WireImage
Last week, while promoting Get Smart, it seemed like Anne Hathaway was everywhere. She was on the Tonight Show; she was on The View, and Good Morning America. And nobody asked her about Raffaello Follieri. The two had just split after we, and presumably she, had learned that he didn’t file tax returns for one of his charities, for which she briefly sat on the board. Why didn’t she get asked about these two big recent developments? The answer is probably that her high-powered publicist, Stephen Huvane, wouldn’t let interviews go anywhere near them.
Lucky for her, her ex-boyfriend was arrested the week after she was relieved of her U.S. press duties for the film. Because even Stephen Huvane would not have been able to stop Diane Sawyer from asking her about the FBI report on him (we hope), especially since some of the money Follieri allegedly defrauded a client out of was spent on Hathaway herself. The first question out of Diane’s mouth would have probably been the same one on everybody’s mind at the moment: “Why didn’t you see this coming?” After the whole tax-evasion thing, the publicist-stiffing thing, the check-bouncing thing, and the pissing–off–President Clinton thing, why was she still sticking around? Did she just believe it every time Follieri brushed off the lawsuits and the arrests as unfair or untrue?
Back around the time when his name first appeared in The Wall Street Journal, we talked to an old friend of Hathaway’s, who told us that she just didn’t believe all of it. “She’s in love,” we were told. Even when friends tried to point out that Follieri seemed like a phony, she wouldn’t listen. Most people would have woken up and smelled the fraud coffee long before, a blogger pointed out on Jezebel today. Anne is like that friend you have who believes the married man she is sleeping with will leave his wife every time he says it, even though you all know it’s not true.
Do you have a friend like that? Who will believe anything that their significant other says because the alternative is scary? If so, stop thinking Anne Hathaway is so dumb. She may have carried on the charade for herself longer than most, but she’s essentially made the mistake that tons of people make every day: thinking that love can be a basis of trust, instead of the other way around. If you think it’s ridiculous, then why are movies with exactly this type of plotline (occasionally starring Anne Hathaway herself) so damn popular?
Earlier: Raffaello Follieri Arrested!
