The celebrities who fell in love with their bodyguards (and how long it lasted)

In fiction, we simply can’t get enough of steamy affairs between female celebrities and their hunky protectors, whether it’s Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner in 1992’s The Bodyguard or Keeley Hawes (playing the home secretary) and Richard Madden in the 2018 BBC drama Bodyguard. Astonishingly, though, this isn’t just an overheated Hollywood trope: it happens in real life, too.

Holly Valance, the former Neighbours actress and pop singer, has become the latest star to get romantically involved with her bodyguard.

Following her divorce from property magnate and Reform treasurer Nick Candy in June last year, after 13 years of marriage, Grant Gale (who was hired to protect Candy, Valance and their two children) now appears to have taken on additional duties.

Singer Britney Spears is also rumoured to have become close to a former bodyguard, while actress Jennifer Lopez’s first husband (of just 11 months), Ojani Noa, reportedly worked in a security capacity. There was speculation in the late 1970s about Princess Anne’s closeness with her bodyguard Sergeant Peter Cross, too – a rumour dramatised in the fourth season of The Crown.

But Valance should beware: this is not a dynamic that typically results in a happy ever after. While the intimate dynamics are clearly alluring, most of these affairs are fraught, messy and incredibly short-lived.

Princess Stéphanie of Monaco and Daniel Ducruet

Royal scandals don’t get more sensational than this one. Princess Stéphanie shocked her family by embarking on an affair with her bodyguard Daniel Ducruet in 1991 – even though, in a glaring red flag, he was already engaged to another woman and expecting a baby. The Princess and her commoner beau went on to have two children, Louis and Pauline, out of wedlock, before Prince Rainier finally relented and allowed them to marry. But it all ended in tears. Just 14 months after tying the knot, Ducruet was caught cheating with glamour model Muriel “Fili” Mol-Houteman, aka Miss Bare Breasts of Belgium 1995.

Together for: Four years; married for one year.

Pamela Anderson and Dan Hayhurst

The former Baywatch and Playboy star is no stranger to a salacious image, but eyebrows shot up when she and her new husband, bodyguard Dan Hayhurst, appeared on (UK TV show) Loose Women while in bed together. “We haven’t left [our bed] since Christmas Eve,” giggled Anderson, referring to their secret wedding ceremony in 2020 on Vancouver Island, following a whirlwind COVID lockdown romance. Inevitably, however, the marriage fell apart a year later, with Anderson later admitting to The Sunday Times that it had been a “stupid” decision and a “disaster”. She even, she claimed, had to pay Hayhurst to leave.

Together for: 16 months; married for one year.

Heidi Klum and Martin Kirsten

In 2012, following her divorce from musician Seal, supermodel Klum began dating the family’s then bodyguard. In an interview with Katie Couric, Klum said they had “just got to know each other from a completely different side”. She added: “I trust him with my children’s life.” Klum reportedly lavished gifts on her new paramour, even buying his mother a house in his native South Africa, before the relationship quickly soured. A source reportedly told RadarOnline that he was “sick of being a househusband”. The pair split after 16 months.

Together for: 16 months.

Kim Kardashian and Shengo Deane

Keen viewers of the Kardashians’ reality TV series (and its spin-off Kourtney and Kim Take New York) soon spotted a handsome new addition to the cast in 2010: Kim’s Australian bodyguard Shengo Deane. They saw a whole lot more of him in one steamy episode where the seemingly loved-up pair went on a dinner date, flirted over a pool game, kissed, and woke up half-naked in bed together. Deane’s furious ex-wife Zuzanna claimed to Star magazine that she and Deane had been “happily married” before he met Kim. But the budding televised romance ended a couple of months later when Deane’s visa ran out, and he could no longer keep up with the Kardashians.

Together for: A couple of months.

Madonna and Jim Albright

The queen of pop reportedly had a secret and very stormy, three-year fling with Albright when he became her bodyguard in 1991. Two decades later, Albright auctioned off numerous private letters, faxes and phone messages from the singer, in which she addressed him breathlessly with pet names like “Booty Man”. However, according to Andrew Morton’s 2001 Madonna biography, this “hot and heavy” affair turned dark. Albright told Morton: “It was like I was making a pact with the devil.” He claimed Madonna grew jealous and insecure, even though she herself was allegedly unfaithful (the singer has never commented on his allegations).

Together for: Three years.

Myleene Klass and Graham Quinn

Singer and presenter Klass met Quinn when he became a bodyguard for her pop group, Hear’Say, in 2001. The pair had two daughters and married in 2011, but Quinn walked out just six months later and the couple divorced in 2013 on the grounds of his “unreasonable behaviour”. Last year Klass claimed on the podcast We Need To Talk that, before the wedding, she had caught Quinn in a compromising position with another female celebrity – during Klass’s birthday party, no less. She is said to have felt blindsided by the speedy end to her marriage, telling The Mail on Sunday: “I hadn’t even got my wedding dress back from the cleaners.”

Together for: 12 years; married for 18 months.

The Telegraph, London