The Scene: At one point, you were a successful and critically acclaimed television actor, with a career at its pinnacle. As an Emmy award winning actor, your television roles were steady and unwavering. You started dating a moderately successful, lesser-known actress, known mostly for a few flop movies and a small role on an Aaron Spelling series. After dated her for five years, the two of you married, and everythng was just coming up daisies.

As actors, your schedules meant constant travel and separation, which meant that home was essentially a place for you and your wife to stash your suitcases between gigs. After a few years of quasi-marriage, your wife won an Academy Award for her role as a transgendered Nebraskan teen in what was essentially a soft-core pr0n flick for the politically correct crowd. During her acceptance speech at the 2000 Oscars, your wife thanked everyone except you, and unfortunately, everyone seemed to notice her omission.

For the nine years of your marriage, you continued through countless television roles, and you were fairly content to live in the shadow of an in-demand movie actress. You supported your wife’s career, and like many couples, you went through some tough patches, but you remained married for nine years. When your wife won her second Academy Award in 2005, she remembered to thank you first, but it was too late. After a few more months, you and your wife announced an impending divorce. Instead of referring to you as “younger brother of Rob Lowe,” the tabloids now emoted you as the “estranged husband of Hilary Swank.” What could be worse, you wondered. One day, wandering through the grocery store, you found the answer to that question:

Hilary Swank sold her soul, as well as her ex-husbands, just to pay the price of admission for a Vanity Fair cover.