MailOnline reporter Sarah Packer was a huge Leonardo DiCaprio fan. Not anymore.
In a piece she wrote for the publication, she describes the Titanic star, 48, as “the man of my dreams” and recalls an incident with him that she considers one of her “most embarrassing moments as a showbiz journalist.”
On February 14, 2016, she was at the BAFTAs where DiCaprio had just won Best Actor for The Revenant. She asked to take a selfie with him to make her Valentine’s Day extra special – and he said no.
Fast forward almost seven years and Packer has gotten over the infatuation. She now says that given another chance at a selfie, she wouldn’t even reach for her phone.
“[F]or the first time in my life, Leo gives me the ick,” she explains.
The reporter says that DiCaprio’s propensity for dating women half his age is a major turnoff.
She explains that the actor became her “first ever Hollywood crush” after she saw Titanic, and the attraction only got stronger when he starred in Catch Me If You Can, The Great Gatsby, and The Wolf of Wall Street.
These days, though, he often looks untidy and keeps jumping from relationship to relationship, all of which are with much younger women.
Packer asks, “[I]s dating women who are under half your age on a consistent basis, trading them in like cars, really the way to live?”
She then puts forth a challenge: Since none of the relationships with younger women worked out, why not date someone his own age?
Some of the role models he should emulate? George Clooney, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Ryan Reynolds, who have all settled down with Amal Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, Luciana Barroso, and Blake Lively respectively.
However, Packer says that DiCaprio keeps choosing young models – among them, Gisele Bundchen, Bar Refaeli, Kelly Rohrbach, and Camila Morrone, who were all 25 when he broke up with them.
Packer writes, “Leo's slowly morphing into the new Hugh Hefner.” And she ends her piece with a bit of advice for the actor: “move on from dating 20-somethings and being in unfulfilled relationships.”
