As published in CLAUDIA

I don’t know if you’re superstitious. I am. I discovered that I carry several beliefs that escape my rational control when I started spending time with more skeptical friends. But if you’re the kind of person who at least respects the idea behind the saying “I don’t believe in witches, but that they exist, they do,” you may enjoy knowing about some of the “Oscar curses.” There is one that supposedly affects all winners, making them “disappear” after they win, as if once they become successful, nothing else works out. But the most famous and feared of all targets are only women nominated for Best Actress (supporting or leading, it doesn’t matter).

Legend has it that the female winner will be cheated on or divorced soon after the Oscar. Unfortunately, statistics seem to support what, let’s be honest, is nothing more than good old-fashioned sexism. Nicole Kidman, Halle Berry, Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts, Reese Witherspoon, Rachel Weisz, and Kate Winslet are just a few of the stars whose marriages and relationships did not last, coincidentally, shortly after they received the industry’s highest recognition. According to a survey I found online, between 1936 and 2016, of the 266 women nominated for the award, 159 divorced soon afterward. That’s right: more than half. And no, it was not necessarily their choice. In most cases, as happened with Reese and Sandra, they went through very public betrayals. In other words, it is the old story of men being unable to handle a woman’s success and replacing her with someone else.

Although the count began in 1936, some people trace the starting point of the Oscars’ romantic curse to Joan Crawford’s victory in 1946. The actress had worked for years to win the statuette, and when she finally won for Mildred Pierce, she reportedly “lost” her husband less than a year later as a “consequence.” The quotation marks are important here to underscore how much weight was placed on the belief that a woman could only be happy if she were married. Even more so if she were married to a man who was the main provider. A balanced relationship, or one led by a woman, was not accepted; she was “punished” for her ambitions. It did not help that in 2009 Kate Winslet separated from Sam Mendes just months after winning for The Reader, in the same year she also won an Emmy for remaking Mildred Pierce for HBO Max. It only reinforced the legend.

The fact that this curse does not affect men with the same frequency is deeply troubling. Indeed, the marriages of Julianne Moore, Cate Blanchett, Frances McDormand, Meryl Streep, and Olivia Colman have remained solid, but younger women like Emma Stone and Jennifer Lawrence, for example, broke up with their boyfriends more or less around the time they won (Andrew Garfield and Nicholas Hoult, respectively). Of course, just a coincidence—nothing to do with machis… sorry, with the curse. It doesn’t seem to me that we are making much progress, even well into the twenty-first century.

Perhaps Jessica Chastain and Kristen Stewart may be feeling a bit more anxious, I don’t know. Nicole Kidman has already been through the test (she separated from Tom Cruise shortly before winning the Oscar for The Hours). Olivia Colman and Frances McDormand have remained with their husbands after winning in 2018, 2019, and 2021, just as Penélope Cruz remains married to Javier Bardem after receiving the Supporting Actress Oscar in 2008. But I am tired of thinking about this curse every year I see a woman win. Enough already. I want winners who are happy in love and in work. And away with the witch!