How Isla Fisher is playing perfect revenge game on model-chasing ex Sacha Baron Cohen with clever ploy
IT’S the old Hollywood story . . . a famous man and woman meet and fall in love, living the showbiz fairytale.
Then they split and, while the famous man goes off with a “model” half his age, the famous woman must keep a dignified silence.
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As far as Isla Fisher is concerned, she’s not about to become another clicheCredit: Getty
Isla alongside ex-husband Sacha Baron CohenCredit: Getty
Isla says she is enjoying the chance to create a ‘new identity’ following her divorce from SachaCredit: Rex
But as far as Isla Fisher is concerned, she’s not about to become another cliche.
As The Sun on Sunday reported, her ex-husband, Sacha Baron Cohen, 54, fully embraced the age-old trope as he partied at a Hollywood nightclub and cosied up with American influencer Kelsey Calemine, who, at 26, is 28 years his junior.
It came just weeks after he was snapped in Paris with OnlyFans model Hannah Palmer, 27.
This week, Isla went some way to redressing the unfair balance — claiming a voice for herself whereas, in previous eras of Hollywood divorces, she may have stayed quiet.
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‘Incredibly patient’
Speaking to New Beauty, the 49-year-old actress said she’s enjoying the chance to create a “new identity” for herself post-divorce.
She revealed: “I’m not going to lie . . . it has been a really challenging time. I definitely feel like there’s something about the divorce club that anyone in it understands in a way other people don’t. It’s a different grief.
“I feel like creating a new identity after your divorce is so fun, though.
“You get to reflect on your values and goals, explore new interests, focus on what you want and rebuild your sense of self.
“It’s a lot like that, reconnecting to passions you had when you were a kid, but they fell by the wayside when you were raising a family.
“All the relationships in your life that were not necessarily the forefront of the way that you spend your time because you’re married.
“Those relationships that are so supportive and brilliant and often really, really old get to retake centre stage. I think that’s a really exciting thing.”
Isla added: “There are lots of positives that have come about from all this, like self-exploration and just trying to be kind to myself. I can just give myself grace whenever I like. That’s all I’m trying to do.”
The actress, who has three children with Sacha — Olive, 18, Elula, 15, and Montgomery, ten — is a refreshing antidote to the narrative that’s often spun about women of a certain age.
Just look at Jennifer Aniston, who was slated as “the tragic single girl” the moment she and Brad Pitt split in 2005 and he coupled up with Angelina Jolie.
Then, that narrative stalked Angelina, too, after she and Brad broke up.
After a long tennis match lasting over 20 years, we are finally putting our racquets down.
Sacha & Isla
While the 61-year-old himself has admitted he hit rock bottom amid that split, following his battle with booze, he has since come back fighting, starring in box office hits, winning awards and settling down again with a woman half his age — Ines de Ramon, 32.
Meanwhile, Angelina has only made infrequent nods to the wreckage wrought on her life post-divorce, and — despite some unsubstantiated rumours — she hasn’t publicly dated anyone since splitting from Brad in 2016.
Isla’s not about to put on a fake performance about it all being sunshine and rainbows.
She’s able to recognise that, as a woman turning 50 early next year, she’s enjoying this new phase of life away from a soured marriage.
Still, for fans who have long followed Sacha and Isla’s love story, this latest phase is a surprising turn of events.
Sacha was spotted cosying up to American influencer Kelsey CalemineCredit: BackGrid
Lily Allen rewrote the rules yet again this year when it comes to the trajectory of a woman post-divorceCredit: Getty
Lily with ex-husband David HarbourCredit: Rex
The pair met in Sydney in 2001 and quickly bonded over their ability to “take the mick out of” pretentious showbiz types.
Despite being from opposite sides of the world (Sacha grew up in North London and Isla in Perth, Australia), they actually had more in common than most, having both attended clown school in Paris.
They got engaged in 2004 and Isla even converted to Judaism in 2007 in order to marry into Sacha’s faith, explaining she loved the religion’s “huge emphasis on family”.
After becoming parents for the first time, they finally married in 2010, in a secret wedding masqueraded as Sacha’s dad’s 70th birthday party.
And for the next 14 years, it really seemed like they had nailed the impossible: Managing to keep their A-list marriage healthy and out of the headlines.
In 2021, Sacha did hint at some of the pressures they’ve faced — heightened by the fact that, as a method actor, he’ll often disappear into some of his more, ahem, unsavoury characters.
Accepting two Golden Globes for his film Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, he said in his acceptance speech: “Thank you to my incredibly patient wife Isla, who has put up with all my madness.”
He told reporters later that night: “It’s impossible to make a movie like this without having an incredibly supporting spouse.
We are proud of all we’ve achieved together and, continuing our great respect for each other, we remain friends and committed to co-parenting our wonderful children.
Sacha & Isla
“You know, I went and made two movies in the last 12 months — [The Trial Of The] Chicago 7 and Borat 2.
“And these aren’t normal shoot days; you’re calling up sometimes at the end of the day and just saying, ‘I was lucky to make it out in one piece today’. So you need a very, very understanding wife. And I’m very lucky to have it.”
Around the same time, they moved their family from Hollywood back to Isla’s home city of Perth — apparently to be closer to her family.
Still, there was no suggestion of marital problems as they continued to show snippets of their happy family life while staying committed to keeping the brunt of it private.
Then, last year, they shocked us all by revealing they’d actually secretly split a year before, saying in a joint Instagram post, which pictured them both in tennis gear: “After a long tennis match lasting over 20 years, we are finally putting our racquets down.”
Their $245million divorce was finalised this June, with the pair telling fans: “We are proud of all we’ve achieved together and, continuing our great respect for each other, we remain friends and committed to co-parenting our wonderful children.”
Better alone
Isla, who has since relocated to London with the kids, told Elle Decoration last week that she’d worked hard to make a new sanctuary in her post-marital home.
She said: “Trying to create a new life from a grassroots level, at least emotionally, has been challenging, but deeply rewarding. I’m enjoying this new version of my life.”
Then, in a subtle nod to her ex’s recent nights on the town, she said: “I don’t need to party in my house any more. I love to get in the bath.
“I’ll light some candles and put something on Netflix. That’s as exciting as it gets.”
Again, Isla is setting a new standard for post-divorce women in the public eye. By staying classy — but vocally triumphant — about the idea of being single, she’s proving it’s not just the ageing men who get to start anew and feel younger again after ending a long marriage.
As for Sacha, it certainly seems like he’s playing by the midlife man’s divorce handbook.
And he’s far from alone when it comes to assuming the role of a middle-aged man doing his best to relive his glory days — amid varied levels of cringiness.
Orlando Bloom wasted no time after splitting from Katy PerryCredit: Splash
Katy kept things comparably classyCredit: Getty
Take Orlando Bloom, who wasted no time after splitting from Katy Perry in July in fully regressing to single man/man-baby status.
In the weeks that followed, he hit the party circuit and flooded his social media with clips of himself partying.
This included a night out at Oasis’s concert at Heaton Park, where he hobnobbed with the band’s kids, including Liam Gallagher’s sons Lennon, 26, and Gene, 24, who are both around half his age, and later posted selfies from the Wimbledon Men’s Final.
At the time, Orlando copped flak, as one fan wrote on his Instagram: “Midlife crisis on full display”, while another weighed in with, “Grow up”.
Meanwhile, Katy kept things comparably classy, focusing instead on her world tour and quietly beginning her new relationship with former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Yet her latest single Bandaids, which focuses on life post-break-up, proved that, like Isla, she’s not prepared to be totally silenced.
Then, of course, there’s Lily Allen, who rewrote the rules yet again this year when it comes to the trajectory of a woman post-divorce.
While her own man-baby, actor David Harbour, allegedly had an affair with a younger woman during their four-year marriage, she dropped the mother of all paybacks last month when she released her autofiction album, West End Girl, which also suggested they had an arrangement where he could pay for sex with strangers.
The record broke down, in detail, the cracks that formed in their relationship from the moment David grew jealous of her success and apparently demanded she agree to an open marriage.
Isla hasn’t gone anywhere near as far as Lily because, for her, it doesn’t seem to be about payback.
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It’s about finding her own joy and sense of self in the aftermath of her decades-long relationship.
Sacha may be finding himself in the arms of much younger women, but as far as Isla is concerned, she’s doing much better alone — and this is only the beginning.
