Lauren Weedman should grab lunch with Jennifer Garner and Gwen Stefani. After an 11-year relationship, the Looking actress’ husband allegedly left her for their son Leo’s 18-year-old babysitter. The couple were already living apart when Weedman discovered his betrayal.
“When David accidentally left his laptop at my place, I didn’t think anything of turning it on,” Weedman told the New York Post on Thursday, March 17. “The computer had belonged to me, and I wanted to make sure I hadn’t left any important videos — such as Leo’s birth — behind. But the oldest video on David’s computer wasn’t one of Leo splashing in the bathtub. It was of our babysitter, Simone, sans clothes — and it was dated 2011, a year before David and I had even gotten married.”
The star — who played Doris on HBO’s Looking — described herself as the “primary breadwinner” in the relationship, while her former actor husband stayed home with the baby.
“When Leo was 1, David recommended we hire Simone, an 18-year-old aspiring actress whom he mentored,” said the author of Miss Fortune: Fresh Perspectives on Having It All From Someone Who Is Not Okay. “She would show up in low-cut tops and miniskirts, but I thought that was just because girls are so overly sexualized in Southern California. When a friend of mine told me that she had spotted them together in the street, I assumed they were discussing her career.”
After discovering the video, Weedman picked up the phone. “I couldn’t even scream, as Leo was in the room,” she told the New York Post. “I’d always pictured catching a husband in an affair as a dramatic scene complete with the slashing of car tires. Instead, I called Simone and left a voicemail: ‘You’re not babysitting today. You’re never babysitting Leo again.’”
She continued: “I should have followed my instincts. Other parents warned me about Simone, but as a feminist who works with at-risk girls, I didn’t want to pass on a new babysitter just because she was overly sexual. I thought she was just a lost, damaged kid. I thought if I didn’t hire her, it would make me look old some old insecure troll. I was trying to prove to David that I was cool.”
It has been two years since the couple split — and Weedman claims David is still in a romantic relationship with Simone.
“It’s every woman’s nightmare, and it can happen to anyone — just look at Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck,” Weedman noted. “It comes down to the fact this whole manhood thing is tough. Feeling like a man, being a money earner, being the one who takes control — I thought they were clichés. But they’re true. Men think that they want to have all that pressure off them, but once it’s lifted, it can be emasculating to be less successful than your wife.”
When reached for comment, David told the New York Post: “The only thing I would say is that Lauren is a writer and a storyteller who, like many, combines truth with fiction in her art as a way of getting to a deeper truth.”
*All names except for Lauren and Leo’s have been changed.
