Why John Travolta's Brief Romance With This '80s Supermodel Didn't Work Out
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John Travolta’s relationship with the late Kelly Preston was sweet and enduring. The duo was married for 29 years until her death from breast cancer in 2020 and the heartbreak he’s suffered has fans wanting him to find love again because they want to see him happy. We don’t know what the future holds for the 70-year-old actor, but his dating history is drawing attention.
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Back in his single era, Travolta was at the height of his fame with movies like Grease and Saturday Night Fever catapulting him to the top of Hollywood’s A-list actors. That’s why one stage mom thought it would be a great idea for her daughter to date him — a tale-as-old-as-time PR dating situation. Teri Shields, the mother of Brooke Shields, decided to orchestrate some publicity for her young supermodel daughter, who was only 16 at the time. Travolta, then 27, agreed to a few dates despite the 11-year age gap. Brooke discussed her mother’s thought process in her 2014 memoir, There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me.
“Basically my ‘relationships’ had always been orchestrated by my mother in one way or another,” Brooke wrote in her book. “She directed my romantic life sometimes subtly and sometimes not. She didn’t focus on romance (never mind love), but instead wanted to associate me with names that connoted fame, money, and power. These were relationships she supported, also because they were less attainable.” Teri, according to People, “played matchmaker” in 1981 so they could both promote their movies. She had Endless Love premiering and he had Blow Out.
Brooke swore nothing happened between them, but the pairing caught the eye of the press. The interview in People was rather cynical, pointing out that they shared the same public relations firm. The magazine described their romance as something “publicists have stirred into the gooeyest romantic wallow of the summer.” It sounds like everyone saw right through this completely fake relationship. They did develop a sweet friendship even though no one was buying their romance. Travolta gushed, “There are lots of women with physical beauty, but Brooke exudes goodness. She’s untainted. You don’t want anyone to hurt her or say the wrong things, because she’s special.”
At the end of the day, Teri was pleased with her matchmaking prowess because it kept her daughter in the spotlight. “She loved that I had briefly dated John Travolta, Jimmy McNichol, Leif Garrett, Scott Baio, and John Kennedy,” Brooke summed up. “They were all on Teen Beat magazines and stars in their own right. She trusted I’d keep my vow of chastity and like the attention paid to me in these couplings.” Teri was the ultimate momager ahead of her time. She walked, so Kris Jenner could run.
Before you go, click here to see surprising celebrity couples we never saw coming.
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