Buysexyhalloweencostumes: Canadian Franchise

Michael Cooper, ex-husband of Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert is played by Billy Crudup in the movie. (Photo: Courtesy of Sony Pictures)

So your wife leaves you and turns the story of your marriage into a national pastime. Danielle Friedman on the man who had the toughest week in show business, Elizabeth Gilbert's ex-husband.

The higher Elizabeth Gilbert climbs up the fame-o-meter, the more gut-wrenching the question becomes: What’s it like to be the guy whose heartbreak launched a multi-million-dollar feel-good franchise?

This was an especially standout week for Gilbert. The film adaptation of her mega-bestselling Eat, Pray, Love opened to massive hype and box office sales. Women across the country shed happy tears over the true story—her true story—of divorce, followed by self-discovery and empowerment.

Yet in keeping with the tale’s theme of cosmic balance, as we watch Gilbert (embodied by Julia Roberts) reach a realm of happiness in which she’s “smiling in her liver,” we watch her husband-turned-ex (played by Billy Crudup) come undone on screen. And this was before she became a gazillionaire.

What’s it like when throngs are cheering for the woman who temporarily destroyed your life, as reenacted by America’s sweetheart?

It sounds like the nightmare of every jilted lover: your ex not only soars to wealth and fame but on the back of your own failed marriage. And, um, very publicly. But people who know Michael Cooper, Gilbert’s ex, say he seems to be doing just fine.

A decade after Gilbert divorced him, Cooper is now married to a Canadian diplomat named Béatrice Maillé. They have two young boys, Charlie and Sammy. According to his LinkedIn profile, he’s currently a public interest law scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center, and he was previously a director for Mercy Corps and Human Rights Watch.

While Cooper was kind enough to return The Daily Beast’s call, he declined to comment for this piece. No, the prominent human-rights activist didn’t launch into a tirade about the throngs that were (likely at that very moment) cheering for the woman who temporarily destroyed his life, as reenacted by America’s sweetheart.

This reticence, or perhaps classiness, has come to define Cooper in the past year—at least in the public sphere. Until last summer, he’d remained nearly fully out of view. Then came news of a book deal, which appeared to be a sort of rebuttal to Eat, Pray, Love. Would he tell all?

Announced in July 2009, the project initially bore the title Displaced. In Publishers Marketplace, it was described as a “memoir of one man's journey to reconnect with his values and reconstruct his life in the wake of an unexpected and devastating divorce…offering an intimate look at the end of his relationship with , and his own search for purpose as he journeys through Kosovo, Mongolia, Iran, Iraq, and other developing countries, working with people displaced by natural disaster and armed conflict.” Hyperion acquired the book, for publication timed to the movie’s release.

Somewhere along the way, the house changed the book’s title to The Husband: One Man's Story of Moving In, Moving Out, and Moving On (never mind that Cooper was already somebody else’s husband).

And about six months ago, the book was quietly canceled, according to Marie Coolman, Hyperion’s executive director of publicity. “It’s just a moot point,” she says of the project.

• Lauren Streib: Inside the Eat Pray Love Merchandising MachineThe reason the deal fell through? According to what seems to be Cooper’s only public remarks on the subject: At the last minute, Hyperion asked him to make it racier, he told the New York Post’s Page Six. "I set out to write about how, in the wake of a devastating and unexpected divorce, I slowly rebuilt my life by redoubling my already decades-long commitment to humanitarian relief and human rights work,” he said. “In the end, it seemed to me that Hyperion hoped to push the book in a more controversial direction—something I was unwilling to do.”

UFL siezes control of Virginia franchise

I am starting to have serious concerns about the folks running this league. I was all set to write a story about Joe Theismann buying all or part of the Florida Tuskers. That should have been the news of the day. A big time football name buying into the league, as of yet the league has not confirmed this story. Instead they released a statement that the league had seized control of the Virginia franchise, which is due to start play next year. Jim Speros was supposed to be the owner of that team.

The official release from the league said that Speros would still be considered, but after doing a lot of leg work and having his team ripped out from underneath him, does anyone really think he will want anything to do with this league? Speros is a big time football executive. He brought Canadian Football to the United States, and would have been an excellent addition to the ownership ranks.

There has to be something that everyone wants to remain undiscovered, but this is very strange. My first thought was they are going to hook up former Washington Redskin Theismann with the Virginia team’s other former Redskin QB Doug Williams who is that team’s General Manager, but who really knows.

After doing a little digging it seems Speros was unwilling to move forward under the terms of the original agreement. The thought here is that this Virginia team, known as the Hampton Roads franchise, will be one of the most successful UFL teams. However the league is still unwilling to give its team owners the kinds of freedom say NFL owners enjoy. This is still a very centralized league, and that is going to have to change sooner rather than later.

Related Links:

•The Business of the UFL

•UFL Examiner

What’s it like when throngs are cheering for the woman who temporarily destroyed your life, as reenacted by America’s sweetheart?

Somewhere along the way, the house changed the book’s title to The Husband: One Man's Story of Moving In, Moving Out, and Moving On (never mind that Cooper was already somebody else’s husband).

And about six months ago, the book was quietly canceled, according to Marie Coolman, Hyperion’s executive director of publicity. “It’s just a moot point,” she says of the project.

UFL siezes control of Virginia franchise

Buysexyhalloweencostumes

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Canadian Franchise

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