The pop world reeled, but Owen's infidelity will not derail his band's comeback. In fact, the revelations may increase their popularity.
To the list of unfaithful male celebrities, which seems to be growing by the second, we can now add (surely not! It can't be!) Mark Owen. The apparently happily coupled, overwhelmingly pleasant
Take That singer has
"opened his heart" (not willingly, you can bet) to the Sun about cheating on the woman who is now his wife with 10 other women. In "love rat" terms that makes him a good deal rattier than Vernon Kay or Ashley Cole, putting him in the same league as John Terry and Tiger Woods. (Owen says, in semi-mitigation, that he has not been unfaithful since his
marriage, so the episodes in question took place before last October.)
Two thoughts arise. One: even back in the days of Take That: The Robbie Years, Owen was always perceived as the most wholesome member, and since their reunion, his stock has risen even higher: journalists have had only friendly things to say about him …
until now.
If you'd conducted a poll last week, everyone, from fans to the media, would have agreed Owen was the last person who would do the dirty on his wife. But now that he's let us down, it's as if the last citadel of decency has crumbled. If Owen was cheating, who can you trust? It sends an arrow through the hearts of people who admired him because he seemed a nice person. In a celebrity-obsessed culture like ours, each of us has our own list of famous people we quite like or can't abide, and in Owen's case it stings a bit to discover one's faith was misplaced.
But maybe people should stop assuming "nice" equates with "faithful" – instead of trusting some pop singer not to two-time his wife just because he looks like the 38-year-old boy next door, it's time to look to less obvious types, like Ozzy Osbourne, for examples of true fidelity. You know without a shadow of a doubt he would never stray, because Sharon would kill him. The day the Sun runs an Ozzy: My Affairs story will be the day we can give up all faith in relationships.
Thought two: it'll be interesting to see how this will affect Take That's astonishingly successful comeback. If my opinion makes them feel any better – yeah, right – they'll be glad to know that I doubt it will have repercussions. Despite the tawdriness and the fact that it's come out now, when unfaithful husbands are being hunted down and shot by the tabloids (and their wives considered doormats if they don't divorce them), Owen's fans are no longer teenagers. He's built up a large reservoir of goodwill, and in his "confession" he's taken it on the chin, putting the blame solely on himself. If anything, the revelation that he's not quite as off-limits as fans always thought may even increase his popularity. He and his band will undoubtedly stay on the Radio 2 playlist for years to come.
Guardian 