Why Hollywood women keep their ex's name

As you – perhaps – know, I regularly revel (glass of wine on the left, M&M’s with brownie fudge filling on the right) in the lives of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. One of the many delightful ingredients is the love troubles and divorce stories. Because in LA, it’s unique if you’ve been together for seven years, and a second, third, or fourth marriage is quite normal. We saw Camille (one of the housewives) get divorced and a few seasons later marry again. Did she change her name? She did, but it just got longer, as her new husband’s name was added. So it became Camille Donatacci Grammer Meyer. Grammer was the name of her previous husband, Kelsey Grammer. And because Kelsey (the actor) ranks just a bit higher than lawyer David C. Meyer (also something delightfully Hollywoodish, adding that initial for some extra glam), he still comes first in line. That they haven’t spoken to each other for years and pretty much refuse to reside in the same district doesn’t matter for a moment. When Camille is asked why she keeps the name of her disgraced ex, the politically correct answer is: ‘For the children.’

That same answer was given by Yolanda Hadid (née Van den Herik) when she divorced her famous music producer David Foster. She took on the name of her previous ex because, and there it was again, she then had the same name as her – now incredibly famous – children. But apparently, during her marriage to David Foster, it wasn’t a big deal to have a different name than her children’s, because back then she was simply Yolanda Foster.

Recently, Kim Kardashian was on the cover of the supplement of The Wall Street Journal (by the way, beautifully photographed by the Dutch Annemarieke van Drimmelen) and what was her title? Kim Kardashian West. As if we wouldn’t have any idea who was on that cover without the addition of West. I mean: Kim Kardashian, that’s the woman with 261 million followers, right? Doesn’t she laugh at Kanye, correction: Ye, with his shabby 9 million peepers?

Can it get any more peculiar? Certainly.
Long ago, Rosalie van Breemen, the beloved of Alain Delon and mother of two of his children, was an expert at RTL Boulevard. As the wife of an actor of his stature, she could tell us all about the real world of glamour and powder. At one point, the sad news came out that the two had divorced, and I called her to ask how she wanted to be titled in the broadcast. There was a silence. ‘Just as Rosalie van Breemen, as I have always been called because we were never officially married.’ ‘That everyone used that name as a title was our choice,’ she said. Because that gave her more stature and made the program more interesting, but she never asked for it.

So you could also take on the name of your famous husband without even having the right to that name. Admittedly: I found Rosalie Delon at the Boulevard desk a bit more exciting than Van Breemen, but she immediately returned it nicely. You can’t say that about Kim, Camille, and Yolanda.