Katharine McPhee and David Foster, who just welcomed a baby boy, will celebrate their second wedding anniversary this June. They’ve been romantically linked since 2016. They’ve known each other, however, for about 15 years, meeting when Katharine was 22 and David was almost 56. May/December romances have always caught the public’s attention, so it’s not surprising that Katherine and David’s 35-year age difference comes up often. Katherine recently spoke on a podcast about their age difference. She reminded people that things are not always what they seem. Of course, Katherine is talking about the perception and not the actual difference – because there is definitely three and a half decades between these two.
Katharine McPhee is opening up about her relationship with David Foster, sharing how the married couple combats negativity surrounding their 35-year age gap and how they’ve prepared for parenthood.
“We all have the ability to label things and to look at something for the way that it looks or face value and make a judgment. So I totally get the judgment initially, but things are never as they appear, things are never exactly as they appear and I’m in love with our love story and that’s all that matters,” the 36-year-old singer and actress told Dr. Berlin during an episode of Informed Pregnancy Podcast of her relationship with Foster. “But it didn’t just happen overnight. We had a real journey and I had a real process.”
Still, when it comes to the judgment that the couple faces from outsiders, McPhee expressed that the negativity seems to be focused on her perceived role in the relationship.
“The perception of what people try to create, especially with women, it’s always the woman’s fault. It’s the woman who wants to be with the older man because he has money and he’s had success and she wants this, that. I mean, our story’s been the complete opposite,” she said. “Every once in a while it feels good to give [trolls on social media] the finger. But for the most part, we really don’t care. [Foster] will say every once in a while, ‘Eventually, we’re just going to look normal to people.'”
McPhee explained, “There was never one day that I doubted my decision to be with him. Even if we had an argument or whatever, I’m so crazy in love with him and so grateful. But it’s not just in love with him, I loved being around him before we were even married.”
In the interview, Katharine acknowledges that the odds are not in their favor, given the statistical success rates of multiple marriages. This is David’s fifth marriage and Katharine’s second. However, she credits the counseling she and first husband, Nick Cokas, did at the end of their marriage as to how she’s making it work with David. She said she learned to approach their relationship differently to avoid the usual pitfalls. I’ll give Katharine credit for being self-aware about why her and David’s relationship has our attention. And her marriage to Nick imploded, so I’m sure it was some pretty intense therapy.
I do agree with Katharine that in the young wife/old geezer relationship, it’s the woman who’s scrutinized. The old man just wants a PYT on his arm and that’s somehow fine, but that gold-digging hussy – keep your eye on her! With Katharine and David, it’s David I’ve side-eyed more. He seems like a man who needs a woman who will make him look good, but won’t eclipse him. Or, in the case of his last marriage, ask too much of him, like, say, being allowed to recover from a major illness. I think that’s what took him so long to marry Katharine, he had to make sure the press wouldn’t put her before him, like they put his Housewife days before his Grammys. Which makes me almost feel bad for Katharine if her comments about being crazy in love with him are true.
Photo credit: Instagram and Avalon
He took his time with this marraige because he didnt want to seem like a jerk that left his wife because she was sick.
The more I read about them, the more I think it has a chance of working out.
If she wants to do a reality show, then all bets are off. That seemed to be part of the downfall of his last two marriages.
I have been side-eyeing her because of her GOP donations. Not her marriage.
THIS. “Things are never exactly as they seem”…when someone who pretends to be an ally to the LGBTQ+ community is actually a GOP donor!
The scrutiny old guy young woman relationships get is nothing compared to the hot hate and derisiveness of old woman young guy relationships.
I’m skeeved out thinking through how older of people of any gender can start creeping on sexual partners the age of their own children. (Cuomo, Madonna, etc). It gives me the barfs. It feels like Venn diagram adjacent to an incest taboo.
That said, I am pretty confident this alliance is going to go the distance. David is punching way above his weight and Katherine has a kid to raise and she’s freed of the stresses of “do we have enough money to send the kid to summer camp” most families face. All David has to do is to not abandon her as she’s now a mother and as time wears on and he wants to just be left alone to workaholic life, which is his go-to in the past.
So long as Katherine has realistic expectations of what David can give as a father and husband in the long term, I think they have a chance too. The challenge will come in about 10-15 years when Katherine is still very much in her prime and David is in his 80s.
*sigh*. Several of my friends have been in long-term age-lopsided relationships with guys 20+ years older. During, they all had this same party line as her and would be defensive about the age difference even though I never brought it up. After, they’ve each shook their heads and said the equivalent of “what on earth was I thinking? He was a dinosaur.” Anyway, as she admits the odds aren’t great with the seven marriages between them, and he looks very well-preserved, so I don’t see her making it far enough to see if she gets anything in the will.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we see that happen here someday.
At least she sounds self-aware about the whole thing. They seem happy together, good for them.
That said, pretty sure I heard they’re Trump supporters, so no thx.
I don’t really side eye their relationship, that’s their business. I do side eye their decision to have a baby when he is in his 70s. Obviously anything can happen, nothing is guaranteed even with younger parents, but I can’t help but feel bad for their kid that he won’t know his dad for very long.
Or maybe Kathrine is thinking she legit has him at the tail end of his life and if he passes away she will be the last Mrs. Foster and that alone will have her set for life?
I’m usually of the opinion that every woman who marries a fossil earns every single dollar she gets from that union, but that’s just me. I wouldn’t particularly want to be, ahem, intimate with David Foster–moreso because he’s a douche than anything else. But that’s just me.
YES! Agree 100%
She always looks like the cat who ate the canary, and he looks like he doesn’t know where he is. Odd couple.
She does have a rather self-satisfied air about her, doesn’t she? She also is styled like a 60 year-old in a few of these pics, which is strange. She doesn’t really look like she’s 36, if you told me she was a decade older I’d believe you. There is just a “hardness” to her features that you don’t usually see in the 30’s. Maybe she’s had work done? I’m not good at spotting that sort of thing.
@ama1977 Mm, I think she’s publicly struggled with body dysmorphia. I agree that her fillers make her look a lot older than she is (then again, I’ve never been able to get onto the “richface” bandwagon).
So true.
I mean, I think it’s exactly as it appears – he’s a wealthy, well-connected man, and there’s significant benefit to marrying him and having children by him lol. There’s probably some affection there, sure, but… Like, it’s fine. You’re both adults, and you’re both getting something out of it, but we know most younger women wouldn’t consider a five times divorced man a catch if he was, say, a lower income construction worker. The rest of us are not stupid.
I cannot stand them. I don’t care about the age difference or any of that. I just think he is horrible.
I neither know or care about these people. However, if comments about age gap relationships were directed instead at gay marriages, people would rightly be outraged. There is nothing inherently repellent about older people.
Did you just equate homophobia (which kills people, by the way) to scrutiny over very big age gaps in relationships? Unbelievable.
makes me sad shes friends with meghan and harry. Either that or they really want us to think they are?
It’s gross. There’s no approval from me in marriages like this ever. He’ll be dead and gone and she still will have time for 3 more husbands.
McPhee has MOSTLY been with older men. Her first husband was 20years older, cheating with what’s her faces’s husband- he was much older, then she dated her costar (he was the lead and the new hot thing) from that CBS show-age appropriate, then D Foster. She’s aimed herself at older men and men who can/do get her somewhere. She’s not dating anyone at her level.
I had to double-check her age. She doesn’t look it. It feels sh*tty to say, but she looks much older, much more severe. But that’s what happens when younger people are with someone much older. I have a friend married to a man 20 years his senior and istg that mf sucked the youth out of him.
I’m in love with our love story
That’s an interesting quote
I think what’s weirder to me than the age gap is that he already is a grandpa. Like, if you’re kids are having kids maybe its time to hang up the towel so to speak.