Twitter is aflame over Leonardo DiCaprio's rumored girlfriend, international model Eden Polani, whom the actor was spotted with at Ebony Riley’s January 31 EP release party in Los Angeles.
DiCaprio obviously hasn't commented, though his camp has tried to throw water on the rumors. Still, that hasn't stopped the public scorn.
It's not great to think that a 48 year old would date someone less than half his age, obviously. It's actually pretty unsettling and it's even worse if the woman is really more of a child — Polani isn't even of legal drinking age in America.
To be clear, the Great Gatsby star does have a marked history of dating alarmingly young women but he's apparently not actually romantically linked to Polani: a source said that DiCaprio and Polani aren't an item.
Famous men like Jerry Seinfeld, Diddy, and Al Pacino — 81-year-old Hollywood legend Pacino is currently dating a 28 year old, according to reports — are only the most famous examples of powerful men fraternizing with significantly younger women.
But DiCaprio is a serial "offender" in this realm, as indicated in a chart that does the rounds on Twitter every few months (it's being brought up again as the rumors of DiCaprio and Eden Polani's alleged relationship go viral).
Yes, DiCaprio isn't doing anything explicitly "illegal" or even technically untoward here. Age gaps in relationships are nothing that's necessarily shameful and, again, he's not actually dating Polani.
The problems are that (A) the age gaps between DiCaprio and his girlfriends are quite extreme and (B) he's approaching middle age even as he continues to date young women in their early 20s, women who aren only just barely adults.
25-year-old Camila Morrone was DiCaprio's last partner, for reference. Not nearly a dramatic gap as DiCaprio and Polani (23 years versus 40 years), but not great.
It shouldn't be too difficult to understand why, in our post-#MeToo era, this kind of pattern is concerning: it exaggerates positions of power and jarringly contrasts life experiences.
On one hand, while plenty of people are having (deserved) fun at DiCaprio's expense (and it's not necessarily wrong to poke fun at the rich and famous, mind you), there's been an unsurprising shift on social media as right wing American commenters steer the conversation from viral meme at DiCaprio's expense to merely another battle in the endless culture war.
Most normal people are either taking it in stride or merely letting DiCaprio having it, though: both are valid responses.
The fact of the matter is that DiCaprio is not dating 19-year-old Paloni, thankfully. There's nothing to cheer about, though, because the fact of the matter is that it's not that hard to believe that the middle-aged DiCaprio would date a borderline teenager: that's no good.
