Husband, Wife, Mistress: Patriarchy's Eternal Love Triangle

Vijay and his now ex-wife, Sangeetha Sornalingam

If your friend circle ever runs short of gossip, we can always rely on cinema to step in. This month’s grand soap opera of South Indian stardom features none other than every girl’s all-time crush, Vijay, the eternally beautiful Trisha Krishnan, and the invisible yet suddenly very visible institution known as ‘wife’.

Vijay and Trisha Krishnan

Now, before the rumour mill spins so fast that it powers half the country, let’s establish the rules of celebrity gossip. One high-profile wedding appearance, a few photographs circulating online, and suddenly the internet turns into a hive of raw agents, who apparently specialise in body language analysis. Social media, with its endless appetite for drama, has been whispering about the alleged closeness between Vijay and Trisha Krishnan. Whether the rumour is a fact, fiction, or just another imaginative episode in the industry’s great gossip saga remains, like most celebrity secrets, politely unconfirmed.

But gossip, my dear readers, hardly waits for facts. It survives on suggestion, symbolism, and the human tendency to fill in the blanks like an overconfident exam candidate. And yet, watch closely how the narrative unfolds. In these dramatic love triangles, the script is mostly similar. The man is mysterious, complicated, perhaps always “misunderstood.” The wife becomes a symbol of silent dignity and respect. However, the “other woman” instantly becomes the villain of the national WhatsApp group.

Within hours of the rumour circulating, the great digital courtroom had already delivered its verdict: “Trisha must have caused the problem.”

That’s the oldest screenplay in the subcontinent.

The interesting thing is how effortlessly blame travels toward the “other woman”. If a man is rumoured to have wandered emotionally, society immediately searches for the nearest woman to prosecute. Why does the man always remain the hero of the story, while the woman becomes a moral lesson?

This plot is known to us.

Rekha, Jaya and Amitabh Bachchan

Remember how Rekha was turned into the mythical “other woman” in endless gossip surrounding her equation with Amitabh Bachchan? Or how Priyanka Chopra's reputation is still scarred from her alleged closeness with Shah Rukh Khan? Fascinatingly, the narrative hardly interrogates the man with equal enthusiasm. Shobha De walked so the patriarchal netizens of today could run.

And so, once again, the internet points its finger in a familiar direction, towards the “other woman”. But here’s the most uncomfortable feminist question: why does the woman always carry the scandal while the man carries the charisma?

If rumours about a relationship are circulating, responsibility cannot magically shift from one person to another. Relationships, after all, are not solo performances; they are duets, and both partners should shoulder the blame. But public imagination prefers a simpler script. One villain. One hero. One innocent wife.

Of course, the timing of the whispers adds extra spice to the plot. Vijay is no longer just a film star; he now stands at the intersection of cinema and politics, where public image is currency and perception travels faster than campaign speeches. When a celebrity begins a political journey, even their personal life becomes a kind of national spectator sport, and Vijay is no exception.

The spectators are very impatient and endlessly curious. At last, in the republic of celebrity gossip, feelings triumph over facts, and a narrative has been built.

Over the years, scandals have always been narrated as stories of a woman’s seduction rather than a man’s betrayal. The woman becomes the villain of the story, and the man becomes the tragic hero caught in an emotional dilemma. Feminists perhaps tried to flip the script. If two people build relationships, responsibility should also be shared by both of them.

Thus, this is exactly where our conversation should begin. Because if we are going to talk about the green flag qualities in a man, like loyalty, respect, morality, then we must also understand that accountability follows power. Therefore, as netizens, we should realise that even when a powerful, celebrated man stands at the centre of such rumours or gossip, the scrutiny should not quietly deflect from him and land entirely on the nearest woman.

Similarly, it's more troublesome to see how quickly women are measured against each other the moment a rumour surfaces. Social media begins its weird little beauty pageant contest, deciding who is prettier, younger, more glamorous or more “worthy.” Jaya Bachchan has always garnered less empathy from the public, with many even blaming her for her husband’s infidelity. Or when Nimrat Kaur was dragged and compared to Aishwarya Rai because of rumours of Abhishek Bachchan’s alleged affair with her (I just realised we’re talking about Bachchan senior and junior as extramarital case studies… yikes). As if the ethics of a relationship could somehow be diluted by comparing beauty, skin tone and Instagram filters.

Feminists demand a radical change, where women should refuse to participate in this hierarchy altogether. These women, who are reduced to mistresses upon the revelation of such scandals, are highly successful, talented and idolised women who risk it all for men, who, let’s face it, are never worth it. No woman should feel compelled to prove she is more attractive, more desirable, or more “valuable” than another woman simply to get male validation. It’s high time women show solidarity with other women, even their married counterparts, rather than engaging in a humiliation ritual, that is, dating a married man. 

And therefore, the most important message here is for women themselves. Is a relationship with a potential cheater worth it? With deception in the picture, that relationship will inevitably turn into a blood bath, with most of the wounds borne by both women exclusively, while the man mostly remains unscathed. Self-respect, once compromised, is far harder to rebuild than any reputation damaged by gossip.

So the real feminist ending to such stories is not about putting an end to villainising women. If two people made the bed, two people gotta lie in it too. iykyk. Beauty contests disguised as moral debates should also be rejected; it was never about the two women, it was about the ugliness of the cheater all along. And I don't just mean their personalities ;)

xoxo,

💋Gossip Gal💋