When you think of a wedding no doubt chandeliers, fairy lights, romantic décor, flowers and dancing come to mind. Huge sums of money are spent annually to ensure perfect wedding days. However, some people want to add a little extra excitement to their ceremony, and not in the sense you may think. Some choose unconventional days such as Friday the 13th or Halloween to add a little horror to their fairytale. Others choose locations that are ‘out of the ordinary’ and also a whole lot of creepy. On this list are just a few such venues around the world where you can have the wedding of your dreams… or you know, nightmares.

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10 The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel

The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, which opened in May 1927, is the oldest hotel in LA. It offers over 25,000 square feet of space and can cater for up to 1500 wedding guests. Its rooms are lavish, a reminder of the golden age of Hollywood. This is not surprising considering its former guests included celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and Charlie Chaplin.

But Hollywood can be found here in more ways than one. The hotel is well known for its hauntings. And the spectres are not just any old ghosts either; they include Montgomery Clift who loves messing around with people’s luggage or annoying them with a trumpet. It is also said that Marilyn Monroe haunts a mirror that used to hang in the suite she stayed in.

Room 213 is inhabited by a headless ghost that likes to scare the living daylights out of guests while the taps and TV turn on and off by itself.
Nevertheless, if these things don’t bother you and you want a wedding with a difference, the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel might just be the venue for you.

9 Walworth Castle Hotel

Castles are very popular wedding venues and the Walworth Castle Hotel in Darlington is no exception. The castle dates to the 12th century. Set on beautiful green lawns and offering indoor and outdoor weddings, this place is truly a dream come true for brides-to-be.

However, the castle’s breathtakingly beautiful exterior belies its gruesome history.

Legend has it that hundreds of years ago a female servant was involved in an affair with one of the lords of the castle. Worried for his reputation, he had the girl walled into the staircase during renovations at the castle to keep anyone from finding out about the affair. It is also believed the girl had been pregnant at the time of her terrible death. Ever since her demise, a downcast spectre has been seen wandering around the castle after emerging from the staircase.

This is just one of many ghostly activities that have been reported by patrons and employees. Some have heard screams emanating from the wall behind the staircase while others have reported having their hair pulled or seeing shadows floating down corridors or sitting in armchairs.

8 Berkeley Castle

As a wedding venue, Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire is just about perfect. This 11th century fortress was opened to the public in 1956. It is an imposing structure with stunning photo backdrops around every corner. Couples can choose to have a church wedding or civil ceremony in one of the massive rooms and then enjoy a picture-perfect stroll alongside lily ponds and historic terraces. Walking along the lawns, they will trace the footsteps of Queen Elizabeth I. It all promises to be an unforgettable experience.

Berkeley Castle has a dark history, however. There is a dungeon on the premises that used to house animal carcasses. It is said that Edward II was imprisoned near the dungeon in 1327 in the hopes that the rotten smell of decomposing animals would make him sick. When this didn’t work, according to legend, Edward II was murdered within the castle; his screams echoing across the lawns.

These days it is rumored that the dungeon also included human remains and one can hear their disembodied screams, mingled with the terrified screams of Edward’s ghost, emanating from the castle.

7 1886 Crescent Hotel and Spa

1886 Crescent Hotel and Spa in Eureka Springs, Arkansas offers luxury and comfort including spa and salon services, gourmet meals, a couples retreat and bridal services. Being a destination resort, guests can enjoy hikes, wine tastings, walking trails, a local skate park and much more.

The hotel is also known as the most haunted in America and its history includes terrifying events. During construction, a stonemason by the name of Michael fell to his death inside the building. In the early 1900s a young woman fell from a top story window, with some reports saying she had been pushed. The hotel changed hands many times over the years and was eventually sold to Norman Baker in 1937 who decided to turn it into a hospital.

Baker turned out to be a psycho who offered ‘miracle’ cures for cancer. He would make sure his patients had no immediate family who would come looking for them and had them sign letters stating they were cured in case anyone enquired about them. He performed surgery in the basement of the hotel, during which he would drill holes in patients’ skulls and pour mixtures of water, corn silk, carbolic acid and watermelon seeds inside it.

Under the guise of being a ‘psychiatric ward’ one wing of the building was inaccessible to anyone but Baker. Patients who cried out in excruciating pain after waking up from their ‘surgery’ could not be heard from outside the ward. When these patients died, he would send a notice to any extended family the specific patient may have had and request money for a ‘funeral’.

Many sightings of spectral doctors and nurses as well as patients wandering the hotel have been reported. The hotel offers ghost tours as a value add and guests can visit the basement where Baker’s horrors took place and view an old autopsy table still on display.

6 Hawthorne Hotel

The Hawthorne Hotel was established in 1925 and is situated in Salem, Massachusetts. It is one of the Historic Hotels of America and have accommodated more than 1 million guests since its opening. A festive parade was held to celebrate the opening of the hotel on 23 July 1925. In the 60s a dance school was established inside the hotel and in the 70s the TV show Bewitched’s Salem Saga was partly filmed at the hotel. In 1990 a séance was held at Hawthorne in the hopes of conjuring up the ghost of Harry Houdini.

However, before the hotel was built, an apple orchard stood in its place. The orchard’s owner was Bridget Bishop; one of the first women to be executed during the Salem Witch Trials. Patrons have reported the smell of apples permeating the Hawthorne Hotel in recent times. The ghosts of sea captains have been encountered at the hotel as well. It is also said that the spectre of a woman hovers at the door of Room 612 while in Room 325 taps turn on and off on their own and a baby cries faintly from a corner.

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5 Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast

If the Hawthorne Hotel is not quite creepy enough, you can always have your wedding at the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast in Massachusetts. This is arguably the most well-known entry on this list and unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. Lizzie Borden’s father, Andrew, and stepmother, Abby, were murdered with an axe in 1892. Lizzie was initially not a suspect, but after the police investigation failed to lead them to the culprit, officers started to believe that Lizzie might just be the killer.

It was discovered that Lizzie tried to buy prussic acid before the murders and burned one of her dresses shortly after the murders. Considering she had no blood on her clothes on the day, it was thought she may have committed the crimes while naked. However, Lizzie Borden was acquitted on 19 June 1893 after a 14-day trial.

The remaining mystery of who killed the Bordens is a drawcard for tourists worldwide. And, couples who want a wedding with a difference. Some patrons of the B&B claimed to have encountered the ghosts of the murdered couple. Abby is said to scream every now and then while Andrew simply walks through the building going about his usual business.

4 The Moors Castle

Muldersdrift in Gauteng, South Africa is well known for its spectacular wedding venues. The area forms part of the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site and is located on the Crocodile River.

One of the most popular wedding venues in Muldersdrift is the Moors Castle. The venue is completely off-grid and runs on solar power. Water is supplied via a borehole and the roof is designed to catch rainwater which is filtered to the building. The castle includes an outside amphitheatre and offers wedding packages as well as conference accommodation and live shows.

The Moors Castle also has a reputation for being haunted by dark shadows that flit about in the woods surrounding the building. A paranormal investigation team decided to follow up on the reports and stumbled upon the ghost of a Victorian-era woman in a black dress while following the sound of screams coming from the nearby river. Legend also has it that the site of the Moors Castle used to be a place of rituals that encouraged healing and that a ‘serpent’ lady used to appear in the river.

3 Death Valley

Death Valley lies in Eastern California and is one of the hottest places in the world. Much of the Death Valley National Park lies within its borders and it is surrounded by mountain ranges. There is a popular outdoor wedding venue called The Oasis located in Death Valley that features a historic inn and luxurious finishes.

Death Valley itself however is the site of many paranormal events. The valley contains many ghost towns and according to legend also the remains and ghosts of miners. It is said that Joe Simpson’s headless ghost roams Death Valley and the gunshot that killed him rings out every year on the anniversary of his death.

The Amargosa Opera House and Hotel is said to be one of the most haunted hotels in the area. Guests have reported hearing disembodied children’s voices and seeing flying objects inside the hotel. In the opera house, a ghost cat lingers, and spectral parties carry on unabated (much the same as in the Overlook Hotel).

Death Valley is also the site where the spectres of actor Walter Scott and his dog still inhabit his mansion known as Scotty’s Castle. Scott has been seen sitting at the fireplace while his dog brushes up against guests’ legs. Guests of the mansion have also reported suffering from panic attacks that dissipate once they leave the premises.

2 Dracula’s Castle

Bran Castle or Dracula’s Castle has its history linked to Vlad the Impaler who inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel. The castle is situated in Transylvania and it is rumored that Vlad may have stayed over here and even attacked it. It was once the home of Queen Marie of Romania who loved the peace and quiet it offered. After she died her heart was buried in the fireplace. Her ghost remains here, walking up and down in the gardens.

The castle is also a wedding venue and ceremonies can be held inside the dungeon. (Just keep in mind that it has been reported the castle does not have running water or functioning bathrooms.) It is also believed that medieval ghosts haunt the castle and terrorize villages nearby. There are tales of poltergeists and even demonic possession surrounding the castle. Some even believe that the ghost of Vlad inhabits the place, continuing an eternal reign of terror.

1 Q Station

On North Head in Sydney, Australia, lies Q Station. This hotel and wedding venue offer heritage halls to hold ceremonies in and some of its locations overlook the Sydney Harbour and Quarantine Beach.

Before it held the promise of a perfect wedding however, Q Station (Quarantine Station) held patients susceptible to ship-borne disease between 1832 and 1984. Patients were only released when considered no longer infectious. Many died here of the Spanish flu, typhoid, small-pox and scarlet fever.

Over the years Q Station has gained the reputation of being one of the most haunted sites in Australia. Visitors here have reported seeing a man in a fedora hat holding the hand of a child. The man has also been caught on camera inside one of the old shower cubicles. Some have heard voices asking: ‘why are you here?’. Others have taken pictures of ghostly shadows closing doors inside the building.

Some tourists have become physically ill and nauseated while walking around the building while others claimed to have smelled perfume wafting from an invisible person. There have also been reports of a spectral mortician walking the grounds of Q Station and a nurse called Matron patrolling the old hospital ward.

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Most of us are quite happy to assume that people are people, cats are cats, and rocks are rocks. There is a clear difference between us, animals, and inanimate objects. But for some, the distinction is not so clear-cut.

Objectophilia—a romantic or sexual attraction to objects—covers many attitudes. At one extreme are people who believe that objects have will, intelligence, and feelings. Conversely, people accept that an object is just an object but love it anyway.

Some people might let love lead to its natural conclusion and marry the object they care for. In some cases, this might be an expression of true love. In many cases, the reason is simply publicity. We’ll look at both kinds here. Some people and institutions will officiate at a wedding between a person and the object of their desire. But these marriages are not legally recognized anywhere. But let’s get to it. Here are the top ten everyday objects people have married.

Related: 10 Cases Of Posthumous Marriage

10 Love Calls for Aaron Chervenak

When the artist and director, Aaron Chervenak, got married in the Little Vegas Chapel, he certainly looked the part. Formally dressed, he was every inch the elegant groom. His bride-to-be, however, was definitely going for a more minimalist look.

As the ceremony reached its climax, the officiant asked:

“Do you, Aaron, take this smartphone to be your lawfully wedded wife, and do you also promise to love her, honor her, comfort and keep her, and be faithful to her?”

He did, and the two tied the knot. That the ceremony was not, and could never be, lawful didn’t seem to worry Aaron. Neither did the fact that most people don’t remain faithful to their smartphones for very long. Soon, their eyes wander, and they decide to upgrade, leaving the old phone languishing in a drawer.

Aaron’s point emphasized how important phones have become and how many of us can’t imagine life without them. The publicity didn’t do any harm either.

9 The Case for Rain Gordon

It’s not unusual to meet a partner in a local store, and Rain Gordon was in a hardware store when she met Gideon. This was in 2015; Rain was 24 and from Moscow, Russia. The relationship with Gideon went well, and five years after their first meeting, the two got married.

This is their story… Rain had been shopping for a prop for a photo shoot when she found the love of her life. Gideon was the prop—because Gideon is a briefcase.

Rain had always believed that objects have souls and, when very young, developed a crush on a new shopping center. She kept quiet about that affair but saw no reason why she shouldn’t be open about her love for Gideon. She is adamant that her relationships with real men have never been as satisfying as her relationship with her briefcase.

8 Pascale Snuggles Up

If you’re like me, you find it difficult to get up in the morning, and you might be tempted to prolong your relationship with your duvet. In Britain, February can be a miserable month, and many would like to spend it in bed rather than in the office. Pascale went one step further.

In a ceremony in Exeter, Pascale “married” her duvet. Anyone could attend as long as they wore bedroom clothes, and 120 guests turned up. Pascale, resplendent in slippers and pajamas, beamed happily as she tied the knot. Her long-term partner, Johnny, kept his thoughts to himself.

Pascale was happy to admit that her “marriage” was a gimmick, but she had a serious purpose. She wanted to draw attention to the problem of loneliness in modern society and chose a date just before Valentine’s Day to get maximum attention. She got it.

7 Ned Nefer Builds a Relationship

Ned Nefer met his wife’s head in 1986 and provided her with a body over the next few years. According to Ned, she instructed him on how to do it, and she has always been the driving force behind the relationship.

When Ned had finished assembling his wife Teagan, they married at a private ceremony in California. Ned, speaking for both of them, said:

“We weren’t legally married. But on the ocean, we took our vows; we said words to each other, and we’ve done our best to live by them.”

Teagan appreciates the open air, and Ned indulged her by taking her for a walk around rural New York in 2011. Teagan was in a wheelchair. Local police talked to him but refused to arrest him because he seemed harmless and happy.

6 No Barrier to Love

Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall” begins with the line:

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall…”

Something perhaps, but someone does or did. “Did” because this is a tragic tale of loss. When Germany was divided into two countries, the democratic West and the communist East, Berlin sat in East Germany but was itself a divided city. To stop citizens from escaping from the communist sector into the democratic sectors, the East German authorities constructed a wall in 1961.

The Berlin Wall was a symbol of division, but for Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer, a Swedish woman in her mid-twenties, the Wall was an object of passion. Eija had fallen for the Wall when she was just seven years old, in the year that the Wall first saw the light of day. In 1979, as the Wall turned 18, she married it.

In the eighties, as the couple settled into married life, pressures were building that eventually saw the destruction of the Soviet system. An unwitting victim was the Wall; the authorities tore it down in 1989.

The young widow turned her attention to railroad tracks, bridges, and fences, but nothing could replace the Wall. Eija died in 2015, no doubt still heartbroken.

5 The Right Fit

Noorul Mahjabeen Hassan prefers that people call her Fractal Database. She was a math student at the University of Florida when she decided to marry her Tetris game. Fractal was no wide-eyed innocent when she fell head over heels for her Tetris.

Fractal had a string of relationships behind her. One of the most serious had been with Pierre, a calculator she saw and ran her fingers over daily. But even with Pierre in her pocket, Fractal felt attracted to others. She is also very keen on IKEA, iPods, GPS systems, and Google Cloud. (I’m not sure that Google Cloud should count as it’s not an object).

One can only hope that Tetris is not the jealous type.

4 Deep-Rooted Love

Tim didn’t get around much and didn’t meet many people. Anyone who wanted to see him had to go to him—he wasn’t going anywhere. Tim lacked experience in the modern world, but you couldn’t describe him as naive or innocent because Tim was a poplar tree.

But, one day in 2015, Tim did meet somebody. Thirty-one-year-old Emma McCabe came across him and fell in love. Emma had had several bad relationships with men and decided she much preferred Tim, the tree’s company.

McCabe was to describe their amorous relationship as the best sex she ever had and that she loved the feeling of skin-to-bark contact. Tim didn’t give his opinion.

3 Tower of Power

The United States Air Force dismissed Erika Eiffel because she had a personality disorder. One indication of this was that while attending the Air Force Academy, she fell in love with an F-15 fighter jet.

A talented archer, Eiffel credited her success in her sport to the relationship that she had with her favorite bow. It’s fitting that Cupid had her in his sights when she first saw the Eiffel Tower in 2004. She fell in love and married the tower in 2007. The tower is over 130 years old, but the difference in their ages doesn’t seem to have hindered their partnership. Speaking for both of them, Erika says that they reciprocate each other’s feelings.

The French jealously guard their rich cultural heritage but haven’t commented on the Eiffel Tower’s marital status.

Ms. Eiffel is the founder of Objectum Sexuality International, an organization that brings together people who are fond of objects.

2 Off the Shelf

When she was seven, Maria Yoon moved to the United States with her family from her native South Korea. Her family seems to have held traditional values because, when she was still unmarried at thirty, her father suggested that it was about time that she found a husband.

Maria is a performance artist and decided that she could turn matrimony into a work of art.

Over nine years, Maria married in all the states, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, and the United States Virgin Islands. She married 36 men and two women and made up the numbers by marrying a few objects, including an entire ghost town, a lobster trap, and the Liberty Bell. Her movie about her adventures has received critical acclaim.

Apparently, she aimed to raise questions about the institution of marriage. I imagine that her dad wishes that he’d never said anything.

1 All the Fun of the Fair

When Amy Wolfe added her partner’s surname Weber to her own, it showed her deep commitment to her marriage. Weber was the roller coaster manufacturer that Amy had fallen in love with.

She didn’t take the relationship lightly; she first fell in love with 1001 Nacht when she was 13 but still had to ride it 3000 times before she was sure she was doing the right thing. That the roller coaster was in Pennsylvania and she was in New York was no obstacle to the romance.

Amy’s previous affairs with model spaceships, the Twin Towers, and a banister didn’t cause her or her fairground ride any difficulties either.

Because Amy’s beau is static, she carries around some spare nuts and bolts from him to always keep him close.

It’s surprising how often the relationship between protégé and mentor turns into a romance and even more surprising when a marriage is the result. Throughout history, people from a wide range of professions have eventually wed their mentors, but it is especially common in the arts. While some of these unions thrive, others become unhealthy and do not survive. From Rudolph Valentino to Celine Dion, here are 10 famous people who married their mentors.

Related: 10 True Stories Of Love Found In Totally Unexpected Ways

10 Mary Shelley

Because of her classic novel Frankenstein (1818), Mary Shelley is just as prominent a figure today as her spouse, poet Percy Shelley. However, when the couple was first married, he was already an accomplished author/poet with a strong following. Mary later credited her husband for the substantial guidance he provided during the writing of what turned out to be her masterpiece.

Frankenstein started out as a short story that Mary penned while she and Percy were on holiday together in Geneva with other luminaries such as Lord Byron. The tale was Mary’s offering in a game among the friends to write ghost stories. Percy encouraged Mary to publish the story as a full novel.

The Shelleys went through some very dark times, experiencing numerous tragedies together, but they influenced one another’s work. After Percy’s death in 1822, Mary continued to write but also focused on bringing more attention to Percy’s writing.^[1]

9 Rudolph Valentino

Considering how well he played the macho, alpha male in films like The Sheik and Blood and Sand, it is somewhat surprising to learn that legendary silent film heartthrob Rudolph Valentino was guided a large extent, by one special woman in his life—second wife, Natacha Rambova (1923–1925). The very creative and multi-talented Rambova was something of a chameleon, starting out as a ballet dancer before reinventing herself as a set and costume designer, set designer, and occasional actress in early Hollywood, later entering the field of Egyptology.

Rambova became Valentino’s manager and took charge of his career, including the look of his films and negotiations of his contracts. Along with screenwriter/MGM exec June Mathis, “Rambova is credited with transforming the actor into Hollywood’s first great screen idol.” According to Rambova’s biographer Michael Morris, it was “the only time in Hollywood history that a woman fashioned a male star to an image of her imagination and shared that image with millions.”

A very original and career-driven woman, she was ahead of her time both personally and artistically. A successful designer by the time she met Valentino, Rambova’s visionary artistic style is even more appreciated today. But while many praise her for helping to create Valentino’s popular persona, she was also blamed at the time for the failure of three of his films. The contract he later signed with United Artists forbade Rambova from being involved in his movies. However, some historians believe she was unfairly maligned due to studio politics.^[2]

8 Marie-Anne Lavoisier

When 13-year-old Marie-Anne Paulze married the 28-year-old pioneering scientist Antoine Lavoisier in France in 1771, it was actually to escape the prospect of marriage to another, much older man. Although this was an arranged union, the aristocratic French couple accomplished an enormous amount together, revolutionizing the world of chemistry.

Often considered the father of modern chemistry, Antoine established the law of conservation of mass, determined that combustion and respiration are caused by chemical reactions with what he named “oxygen,” and, with Marie-Anne’s help, created the new system for naming chemical substances. After Marie-Anne became interested in Antoine’s research, she started aiding him in the laboratory as both his assistant and companion. She turned out to be very valuable in this role, translating chemical works into English and using her artistic skills to sketch lab research and do engravings of apparatus that would appear in publications. She also worked hard outside the laboratory to promote Antoine’s theories.

Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier started out as a young girl exploring and learning about the work of her brilliant husband but became a true collaborator in his scientific breakthroughs.^[3]

7 Celine Dion

One of the most famous mentorship-protégé romances in show business was the relationship between French-Canadian singer Celine Dion and her star-maker manager Rene Angelil. One of the most surprising things about this story is that Dion was just 12 years old when she first met the 38-year-old Angelil and became his client. While the relationship did not become romantic until Dion was 19 years old, there was an emotional beginning. Angelil cried the first time he heard her sing and “mortgaged his house to finance her first album.”

After a three-year engagement, Dion and Angelil married in 1994 and would eventually have three children. The two proved to be a winning team, both personally and professionally. With Angelil as her manager, Dion soon became hugely successful with many hit songs, including “My Heart Will Go On,” “The Power of Love,” and “Because You Loved Me.” He also created her enormously popular Las Vegas residency show. In 2013, more than 30 years after the launch of her career, Dion’s album Loved Me Back to Life rose to #2 on the Billboard Top 200.

In January 2016, Angelil passed away following his battle with cancer and was widely mourned. As Dion’s website stated: “Never before had a man in the shadows held such an important place in the hearts of the people.”^[4]

6 Frida Kahlo

When renowned Mexican artist Frida Kahlo was still an art student, she sought out accomplished artist Diego Rivera for advice on her career. The meeting turned out to be fateful in more ways than one. Despite the fact that Rivera was married to someone else at the time, he and Kahlo began a passionate and very stormy romance leading to marriage in 1929, divorce 10 years later, and remarriage just one year later.

Like most of these couples, there was mutual influence on each other’s work over the years. The extent of Rivera’s impact on Kahlo’s creative process is obvious from Kahlo’s self-portrait Diego on My Mind, in which he appears as her third eye.^[5]

5 Terri Irwin

When Terri Irwin met her future husband, Steve Irwin, well remembered as the “Crocodile Hunter,” she was already used to working with wild animals, having started a rehabilitation & education center for predatory animals in Oregon. However, her initial encounter with the gregarious Steve Irwin in 1991, while attending his croc show at the Australia Zoo, would lead to exciting and challenging new horizons for Terri. The two hit it off immediately and married the following year.

Terri worked closely with Steve, such as starring alongside him in the popular Crocodile Hunter TV series, which also featured their children Bindi and Robert.

When Steve tragically died at the age of 44 after being attacked by a stingray, Terri worked hard to carry on her husband’s legacy. Not only did she take over Steve’s crocodile show at the Australia Zoo, but she moved forward with his plans to greatly expand the size of the zoo, fundraising for endangered wildlife and taking charge of vast nature reserves.^[6]

4 Robert Browning

It could be argued that the poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning were each other’s mentors since the couple influenced one another’s work. However, during their lifetimes, Elizabeth Barrett Browning was the more prominent of the two. She was a celebrity while Browning was still a struggling poet, incurring harsh criticism. It was the bad critical reception of his book Dramatic Lyrics (1842) that led to their first encounter. While most critics rejected the work, Elizabeth Barrett defended it. Browning wrote to thank her for her praise and asked to meet her.

Robert Browning was a big fan of Elizabeth’s poetry, lavishing compliments on her in letters. The two corresponded for many months, discussing poetry and later more personal subjects, before finally meeting and falling in love. Elizabeth had weak lungs and was living as an invalid with her large core family in their mansion at the time. Her father was a tyrannical man who was adamantly against the idea of marriage for any of his children. The couple eloped in 1846 and moved to Italy, where Barrett’s health improved, and she did some of her best writing. She gave birth to their son at the age of 43. After their marriage, the Brownings continued to significantly influence one another’s work and enjoyed 15 years together before Elizabeth’s death in 1861.^[7]

3 Maria Callas

One of the most acclaimed operatic divas of all time, the legendary Maria Callas had a number of teachers and mentors as an up-and-coming singer. However, the one individual who seemed to have the biggest commercial impact on her career was Callas’s husband/manager, Giovanni Battista Meneghini. The much older Italian businessman and enthusiastic opera patron met the 23-year-old Greek-American Callas in 1947 when she was a little-known artist newly arrived in Verona for a performance. He instantly began to guide her career, something that would continue throughout their subsequent marriage in 1949.

Meneghini pushed Callas to achieve as much as possible, picking up where her controlling and eventually estranged mother left off. He was also responsible, to some extent, for her transformation from a dowdy-looking young woman to the fashionable, glamorous icon we remember. The dramatic mezzo-soprano rose to the top during these years, thrilling audiences and critics alike with her performances in such operas as Norma and Tosca. However, Meneghini has also been criticized for the way he managed Callas’s career, particularly the way he negotiated her contracts after she became a star, and for stealing so much of her money.

In the late 1950s, Callas split from Meneghini when she became involved with the famously wealthy Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, also married at the time. She performed very little during this period, and many felt that her extraordinary voice had started to decline. By1968, she had lost Onassis, who married former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy that year.^[8]

2 Bo Derek

Like a number of other young, aspiring actors, Bo Derek would end up married to the impresario who propelled her to stardom. However much this may sound like a fairytale, there was plenty of scandal to go along with it. Actor/filmmaker John Derek was a 47-year-old married man when he met 16-year-old Bo (born Mary Cathleen Collins), casting her in a project called Fantasies. They became romantically involved when Bo was just 17.

John escaped arrest for statutory rape by moving to Germany with Bo until she was 18 years old, and the two married in 1976. Bo had a lot in common with two of John’s former wives, Linda Evans and Ursula Andress. All three were exceptionally beautiful, sexy blonde actresses who John had mentored. Although Bo’s acting was frequently panned by critics, she soon achieved stardom with movies like 10, co-starring Dudley Moore, and films helmed by John, including Tarzan the Ape Man.

After the death of her husband in 1998, Bo became involved with actor John Corbett from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, whom she married in 2020.^[9]

1 Katharine McPhee

Considering the long and impressive career of music producer/songwriter/musician David Foster, it’s natural to assume that he has been a mentor to popular singer/songwriter/actress Katharine McPhee, whom he married in 2019 after many years of friendship. Not only did Foster actually serve as McPhee’s mentor when she was a contestant on American Idol in 2006, but he produced her very first single when she was just 21 years old. Among all the glowing things she has said about her husband, McPhee has called him her “motivator” and talked about how he “inspires” her and how much she has always “admired” him.

The 35-year age difference between the two is something that has been given a lot of attention by the media. Reflecting on this topic, Foster told People magazine: “There’s so many things that can bring a marriage down, and age difference is just one of them… We think we have it pretty together.”

With four ex-wives, Foster is obviously knowledgeable on the subject of marital pitfalls. McPhee was also previously married. She and actor Nick Cokas called it quits after six years of marriage.

During the pandemic, McPhee and Foster collaborated on a series of Youtube videos adorably called “The Kat and Dave Show” and have also performed together in concert, with McPhee appearing as a guest star at some of Foster’s gigs. Now that McPhee and Foster have a child together—son Rennie, born in February 2021—Foster may be able to mentor McPhee, a first-time mom, since he already has five grown daughters.^[10]