Did Courteney Cox & Johnny McDaid split because she tried to ‘mother’ him?

FFN_RIJ_JUST_BEFORE_042015_51717239

Just FYI: I don’t really have a philosophical problem with “cougar” relationships. I think it’s all about the maturity levels and just how wide a gap we see in the age differences. I wasn’t bothered by Courteney Cox’s marriage to David Arquette, who is seven years younger than Cox, and I wasn’t bothered by CC’s engagement to Johnny McDaid, who is 13 years younger than Cox. She’s 51 years old, and McDaid is 38. They’re both old enough to know what they’re doing, so on the age difference, who cares? Now all that being said, it would be silly to think that the age difference doesn’t play a part in how Cox relates to her partners. It’s widely believed that Cox and Arquette split up because she was simply tired of “mothering” him. Then she fell into the same trap with McDaid… allegedly.

It was reported this week that they had called off their engagement. But according to insiders Courteney Cox and Johnny McDaid’s relationship was in crisis months before their shock split was reported. Dan Wootton for The Sun reports that the Friends star and the Snow Patrol musician temporarily split in February before reuniting after seeking help through relationship counselling.

Insiders close to the actress claim it was her ‘bossy’ nature and ‘mothering’ of her now ex beau that led to a split in February. At that time Courteney and Johnny put on a united front as they attended The Grammy Awards together in Los Angeles on February 9 to support pal Ed and his nominated album X, which Johnny collaborated on. The Sun report that it was around this time that the couple tried relationship counselling in a bid to solve their issues, but their differences led to what is reported to be a permanent split last month.

‘She is domineering and used to getting what she wants in her relationships and in work,’ an insider close to Courteney has claimed to The Sun. ‘She is tough and doesn’t suffer fools. Johnny is laid back and their personalities just clashed. She would try to mother him and he didn’t like it.’

[From The Daily Mail]

Is this why Cox always goes for younger guys? Because she’s secretly controlling and “domineering” and she mothers the dude until she gets her way? Eh. I think Cox and McDaid probably had a lot of problems and this was just one part of their dysfunctional relationship. The only thing we really know is that he dumped her. He was the one moving out and getting the hell out of LA. Reportedly, Cox doesn’t even know where he is now and they’re not even speaking to each other. So much teenage drama with this one, eh?

Last week, Page Six came up with like five different theories about their split too, including A) he hated that she was so close to her male costars, B) she hated that he smokes, C) he’s really “cold.” Oh, and Page Six also said that McDaid had become very close to Cox’s daughter Coco but Courteney wouldn’t allow McDaid to say goodbye to her. Yikes.

cox1

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet, Twitter.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

39 Responses to “Did Courteney Cox & Johnny McDaid split because she tried to ‘mother’ him?”

Comments are Closed

We close comments on older posts to fight comment spam.

  1. Little Darling says:

    From what I recall this is a habitual pattern of hers. I remember hearing a lot about this when she was with David Arquette. With them I think it worked for a long time, as he needed her mothering. For someone else it might not be so endearing.

    • blue banana says:

      if people don’t want to be mothered, they shouldn’t act so as to require said mothering!!!

      • Liv says:

        Weird theory. There are actually people who don’t want to be mothered and other people who do it anyway!

      • blue banana says:

        and it took him years and an engagement to recognize her mothering tendencies?

    • chick b says:

      I think it may be more of a control thing. FWIW, back in the day a few articles mentioned this characteristic when she was dating Michael Keaton. People were amused by it then b/c Keaton was older & more established than Cox at the time.

      Anyway, the red suede dress is killer.

    • Trashaddict says:

      This is the female equivalent of what Woody Allen does, without the perv aspect. Although it’s still kinda creepy.
      Speaking of creepy, it’s been so long since her face looked like it was real and not made out of wax-

  2. NewWester says:

    Someone close to Courtney or at the Daily Mail must really dislike her. They said everything in that article but stopped short of calling her a “b*t*h”
    I think I would become one after being described that way

    • Jayna says:

      DailyMail is a hack mag at times. When they dislike someone, their articles are always slanted horribly against them. No objectivity at all in those cases.

      • LAK says:

        British newpapers are terribly restrained these days. they’ve been worse and the DM is not the worst offender.

      • Denise says:

        The DM is either falling all over a celeb or slamming them. And they appear to have no proofreader. And they love to talk about women’s weight. A huge step back for us.

  3. Jayna says:

    I think she is an intense person, type A personality, never stopping always involved in something, buying and selling homes for profit, producing, etc. He sounded like a laidback guy, even living with the much younger Ed Sheeran for a while while they were collaborating on Sheehan’s album.

    He’s not an original Snow Patrol musician. He was hired on much later. But he’s a songwriter/singer even before and still now in his own right, and has had hits out there. He produces. I don’t know that he has a lot of money compared to her wealth, although successful and even has some of his songs on TV also, but maybe a power imbalance that way also. But as a creative person/musician, living different hours in the way he works creatively with other musicians and away often, maybe ultimately he and Courtney had nothing in common and definitely didn’t want a woman running his life. I liked his remix of U2’s Unknown Caller they hired him to do several years back.

    Their personalities probably just clashed after a while.

    • tracking says:

      Yeah, I basically said this in the last thread–that she seems type A and has control issues. Also, bad habits are hard to break and she got used to controlling everything with her man-child former husband.

      • Jayna says:

        I agree. I think Courtney is tightly-wound, and Johnny is an Irish musician. Coming from two different cultures could have ultimately been an issue also. If he is a man who withdraws emotionally at times, I could see how that could drive Courtney crazy.

        I do love Irish men, though.

        I, honestly, see Jennifer Aniston as being more compatible with him than Courtney, if Jennifer were single, that is, because she’s more laid back.

  4. cannibell says:

    “McDaid had become very close to Cox’s daughter Coco but Courteney wouldn’t allow McDaid to say goodbye to her.”

    If that’s true, shame on Cox. Public displays of hating your ex more than you love your kid can to come back to bite you in the ass down the road…..

    • tracking says:

      I hope that’s not true, mainly because it’s not fair to her daughter. People do crazy things when they’re heartbroken/furious though.

    • Denise says:

      I can see that reaction if you were caught offguard. I wouldn’t want a man who had just hurt me saying adios to my child before I got my head around it. You need to be able to speak to your child about this loss afterward with composure and confidence so they can see that everything will be ok. If he was decent he would understand and wait a few days when everyone agreed it was the right time.

  5. Bridget says:

    I don’t know that we can say that CC goes for guys she can “mother” based just on McDaid and Arquette – she and Arquette were together for a long time, and it sounded like the relationship degenerated over time (and if folks remember, she was the one that pulled that plug). Now, I do seriously wonder about the pairing on Courtney Cox, notorious tight ass, with a musician. And I don’t doubt that there were serious problems.

  6. Froggy says:

    Such a ‘Monica’ thing to do. Sorry couldn’t help it. I just watched that episode last night.

  7. vauvert says:

    I like CC and I just regret she messed up her gorgeous face. I think she suffers from something I call infatuation syndrome – she falls for guys who are ok for a fling but not marriage material. Then she finds that she has committed herself (engagement, whatever) and she is both monogamous by nature and determined… So instead of breaking up at that point when she realizes a laid back rocker or a goofy man child are not the life partner she is looking for, she tries to make it work. She tries really hard. But ultimately it fails and I think it is very unfair she gets the blame for the failure – the guys are as much to blame.

    • blue banana says:

      you just described me to a tee! except for the messed up face part. sigh

    • Jayna says:

      I don’t think anyone has blamed the failure of her marriage to David on her. He was a man/child, terribly immature, with alcohol issues. Last year he called Howard Stern in the early morning whining that Howard was in California and didn’t see him but saw Howard’s close friend Jimmy Kimmel. He was trashed out of his mind that early in the morning (it was cringeworthy) and just whining and whining, and you could hear his little baby in the background while he’s on the phone to Howard drunk out of his mind. David is in his 40s and is a mess. He needs to be in rehab, but is emotionally stunted.
      Courtney stayed with him longer than she should have.

    • tracking says:

      I don’t know that anyone is to blame per se—just mismatched—but I agree she seems very determined to make things work (a good quality!) and not one for casual dating. She could use some of that in her life, though maybe she had that with her C’town costars and got sick of that(?)

    • Denise says:

      That makes a lot of sense. And I think so many of us – men as well as women, gay and straight – fall into that trap.

  8. Sochan says:

    Sounds like “mothering” = “controlling” in this context.

  9. Fiddy says:

    I think her initial attraction to him was that certain look she goes for with her men.

    I’m not surprised if she is the ‘mothering’ type – after being with David Arquette for so long, that would be a hard habit to kick. But yes, that would be enough to kill a relationship – it would certainly drive me mad and I’ve terminated a friendship for the same reason.

    If it’s not meant to be then so be it … I’d love to see her with an Architect or someone really handy with tools – they’d complement her home renovation skills quite nicely! 🙂

    • Jayna says:

      She was with that actor who played her ex-husband on her TV show for several years. I wonder what happened to their relationship.

  10. Wondering says:

    People break up for a lot of reasons. Witch hunting Courtney is ridiculous, unfair, and sexist. They need to let this go.

  11. Jayna says:

    I think her face looks good in that photo of them together above. The red looks good on her and I love her shorter hair. Sometimes her face isn’t as jacked. But it’s really jacked in the second photo.

    Here she is in September, I think it was, on The Talk, talking about how she met Johnny. She’s on with Craig Ferguson. I guess she’s producing some game show he’s on. She looked pretty here also. No hint of trouble in paradise about her beau. Craig Ferguson is so adorable. Oops. Maybe that clip is from a year ago.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUJVsfzA-Ak

  12. Nancy says:

    She looks like his mother. Sorry Courteney.

  13. Crumpet says:

    Wasn’t she described as such to the cast of Friends? Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn’t. David Arquette wanted it, and she wanted to give him mothering but after a few years said she was tired of being his mother. If I were her, I would get some serious counseling before my next relationship.

    I call BS on not letting her daughter say goodbye. She has always remained very cordial if not genuinely close to her exes.

    • kate says:

      I’m pretty sure her other significant relationships ended after a mutual agreement that things weren’t working, whereas this time it seems she wanted to keep working at it and McDaid just left. I can definitely see her not handling that very well.

  14. maggie says:

    Well there’s nothing like mothering to kill the sex!

  15. alice says:

    this happens all the time with older men/younger woman combo, that on Hollywood (and everywhere else basically) is so common, and we never question those couples thinking that the man wanted to father the younger woman. It looks like no matter what society tends to always blame the woman, regardless the age, and men just sit there, being condone even if they think with their penises and cheat, or even more simple, and this seems to be the McDaid case, just got bored. Why?

  16. cakecakecake says:

    her face is messed up.

    • Nancy says:

      It is. I feel bad bc I said she looks like his mother but she does in that one pix. She was pretty, should have left her face alone. Don’t mess with Mother Nature!

  17. kate says:

    She’s definitely the ‘mothering’ type. Not just with her partners. Pretty much all of her castmates through the years have said she’s the ‘mom’ of the cast.

  18. siri says:

    He’s Irish, which means proud. And he is used to being on his own, making his own decisions. Could be that she became too clingy, and controlling. I remember her talking about a wedding quite frequently, and very detailled, wondering if he likes those public declarations about something that’s actually very personal, and where not even a concrete date had been set yet. It at least sounded very pushy from her part…I also think he became more aware of their age difference through this, and perhaps of their different goals at that point. I also think LA is not his thing.

  19. Grant says:

    I was watching Friends and the original Scream on Netflix the other day. She was so effortlessly beautiful, like the kind of stunning that can just get out of bed and traipse into the world without a hint of makeup on. She had the kind of face that was going to age well, so that she would remain lovely even into her old age. She looks better in that pic with her ex where she’s wearing the red dress but she looks awful in others. So sad to me. I’ve always had a soft spot for her, perhaps because I loved her in Friends/Scream.