LET’S get one thing straight: Danny Jones is married, Maura Higgins is not.
She is young, free and single, and in my book that gives her carte blanche to do whatever she wants. Danny is a husband and father – a man who should do, and must do, better.
But guess what? Following THAT apparent drunken kiss at a Brit Awards after-party, social media is resounding with the usual cries of ‘homewrecker’ as people blindly take potshots at the woman for another man’s behaviour.
Or, as one online commentator quite rightly put it: Homewrecker: a term used to blame the single woman for the married man’s choices.
Spot on.
And while there is no suggestion Danny or Maura were having a relationship, and that this was nothing more than a drunken kiss, I know, from bitter experience, that it’s almost always the mistress who takes the flak.
In my early twenties I was in a relationship with a married man who was 20 years my senior.
He had been married for over a decade and had two young children. When everything ended it was me who got the disapproving comments and the raised eyebrows.
I received anonymous letters from his friends calling me a homewrecker, a b***h and a sl*t. And of course, it was me whom the wife blamed, not her own husband.
But I didn’t know his wife and I had nothing against her. And I hadn’t made or broken any vows.
I also hadn’t set out to break up anyone’s marriage or wreck anyone’s home. My married lover (a colleague) had pursued me relentlessly, until I finally agreed to go for a drink.
But even then, I knew he was married and I certainly didn’t want to get involved, until he assured me it was over with his wife anyway.
In the case of Maura and Danny, it is totally unfair to dub the 34-year-old former Love Island contestant a homewrecker. She is footloose and fancy-free, while McFly star Danny, 38, has a wife of 11 years, and a seven-year-old child.
When it comes to partners playing away, the statistics are telling: within marriages, it’s estimated that 20 per cent of men will cheat on a spouse, compared with 13 per cent of women.
Women also do the majority of the housework and childcare within marriages. In other words, men have far more opportunity and freedom to cheat outside a long-term marriage than women.
There’s no indication that Maura and Danny was anything more than a brief, drunken kiss which meant nothing and which everyone involved will agree was a mistake.
The couple have been married since 2014, while Maura – who bonded with Danny last year, during their stint in the I’m A Celebrity jungle – has recently been through a messy break-up with her ex, Pete Wicks, and is currently single.
But predictably enough, she’s the one in the firing line.
Online comments went straight for the jugular, with rants including: “Maura could have literally any man and she’s kissing a married man who has children?!”
But why is Maura getting it in the neck, and not Danny?
She was called not only a “homewrecker” but a “garbage person”. Another comment quipped “she can’t keep a man anyway”.
And trolls have been swift to rake through her relationship history, looking at all the times she supposedly wrecked other marriages with one common theme running throughout – it is as if the men played no part.
“She’s done it before, she was the reason her Dancing on Ice partner’s marriage ended,” one detractor claimed.
Then the inevitable blow: “Maura has never been a girl’s girl.”
It’s time for a reality check. We need to stop blaming women.
Again and again in these situations, we see the man and the woman treated differently. The man is given, if not a free pass, at least an indulgent shake of the head.
“Boys will be boys… he probably had a few too many drinks… a lad sowing his wild oats.”
Let’s be crystal clear about who made what promise – and who broke it
Men’s dalliances are usually met with leniency – a privilege rarely extended to women.
In the case of Maura’s Brits clinch, it’s her revealing outfit, her ‘eye-popping cleavage’ and sultry looks, HER behaviour which is scrutinised. Husbands are expected to have a wandering eye – and that’s somehow OK.
We don’t know what’s going on with Maura and Danny, or what’s happening with Danny and his former Miss England and model wife Georgia, behind closed doors.
But let’s be crystal clear about who made what promise – and who broke it.
When you get hitched, you commit to one person for your lifetime, which is precisely what Danny did when he said his vows.
He pledged to ‘till death do us part’, so let’s not be foolish and forget that Maura has made no such promise.
Even in 2025, this still makes no difference. A bit like blaming witches when things go wrong in medieval villages, we still blame the woman. Especially if she’s young and attractive.
I know first hand that being someone’s mistress isn’t fun and most women don’t want to get caught up in that kind of messy affair. I’d never do it again.
Why do we assume ‘the other woman’ is some kind of temptress who entices the man away from domestic bliss and the marital bed?
That he’s perfectly happy until she leads him astray and forces him to cheat on his oh-so-happy home? Instead of looking at the marriage itself, we assume everything was fine until SHE came along.
Maura is not an isolated example. In the past few days another high-profile female celeb, Fearne Cotton, has been vilified for enjoying her newly-single status.
Fearne was pictured on a night out in Soho “sharing a passionate kiss” with TV director Elliot Hegarty, a few weeks after she announced the end of her 10-year marriage with Jesse Wood.
According to reports, Hegarty ended his marriage to his wife (and mother of his three children) on only ten days after Fearne confirmed her own marital split.
Why do women get so enraged by other women? Is it envy, or a territorial 'keep your hands off my man' sense of threat?
On social media, the backlash against Fearne was ferocious.
Eamonn Holmes’ new girlfriend Katie Alexander has had similar harsh criticism for getting together with the 65-year-old TV presenter. They went public in May last year following his split from Ruth Langsford after 14 years of marriage.
Instead of asking what went wrong in Ruth and Eamonn’s marriage, public scrutiny has very much been on 43-year-old Katie.
She is called a gold-digger and a marriage-wrecker, because Eamonn and Ruth were one of TV’s most adored couples. But no one blames Eamonn himself.
Why do women get so enraged by other women? Is it envy, or a territorial 'keep your hands off my man' sense of threat?
Overwhelmingly the trolls attacking Maura are female – and on social media that’s usually the case.
For all our claims of gender equality, us women are still far more critical and nastier about other women than we are about men. We expect higher moral standards from the fair sex.
Women are supposed to be virtuous and ladylike and not ‘wreck’ other women’s homes or marriages.
Of course, it’s understandable that a betrayed wife feels angry at the woman who has ‘taken her man’.
If you’re a long-suffering wife, you’re looking after the home and bringing up the children, so it’s no wonder you’d hate the woman who has stolen your husband.
Especially if they’re drop-dead gorgeous, like Maura Higgins.
It’s easier to attack the other woman than look at what’s lacking in your own marriage.
But any wife who blames the mistress is seriously in denial. After all, it takes two to tango.
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