LOS ANGELES - Academy award-winning duo Charlize Theron and Sean Penn have broken off their engagement and parted ways after a two-year relationship, US media reported Wednesday.
The couple was last seen together in May in Cannes, where Theron - who only recently referred to Penn as the love of her life - was promoting the premiere of her film ‘Mad Max.’
Theron, 39, decided to cut it off with Penn, 54, whom she started dating in 2013 after the two had known each other as friends for years, Us Weekly reported. In 2004, the pair shared a one-of-a-kind experience: they each took home a first Oscar, in her case for ‘Monster,’ and in his for ‘Mystic River.’ Penn then won another Academy Award in 2009 for ‘Milk.’ Who knows if Cannes - a bloated, weird fandango of a film festival, survivable only by consuming gallons of rose - was partly to blame, but remember that this is the place where women are forced to wear high heels on red carpets. Anyone in flats is made to lick the garbage cans along the Croisette.
A friend wondered at the age difference, but although Penn, 54, may occasionally sport the heavily whiskered face of an ancient mariner (married to the hot body of a 22-year-old CrossFit addict), Theron is 39 herself. She looks a lot younger, for sure, but that’s hardly May to December, more like May to early August. In a March cover profile, Esquire U.K.’s Alex Bilmes noted of Penn that he was ‘not tall maybe 5ft 9inch but he is physically imposing: brawny and with an off-balance buccaneer’s stride that speaks of a life lived not behind glass and under strip lights but somewhere Out There, where the sun beats down on a man’s leathery hide and the wind whips through his thicket of dark hair and the years of exposure to the elements carve deep lines across his brow.’
So, weather-beaten, hard-living Penn versus the beauteous Theron; beauty; two actors whose resumes show they are not beholden to mega-franchise filmmaking but instead are dedicated to standout roles distinguished by their intensity.