Celebrity News

Breakup of the rich & beautiful

That gorgeous couple, movie star Uma Thurman, than whom you can get no more beautiful, and hedge fund manager Arki Busson, than whom you can get no more ur bane, are still beautiful and urbane — just not anymore a couple.

Uma’s history includes marriage, divorce and two children with Ethan Hawke, plus a longtime togetherness with hotelier Andre Balazs. Arpad, called Arki, is addicted to beauties like supermodel Elle Macpherson, with whom he made two babies but no wedding.

A load of caviar and champagne ago, these two anointed creatures got together with the force of Grucci fireworks. He’s Catholic, she’s Buddhist but — what the hell — money, fame, the high life and internationality are interdenominational. He seemed willing to bend his catechism; she seemed willing to trade her beads for his 8-carat diamond solitaire. Despite her home in New York, they also bunked together in his place in Europe. Summer of 2008 they announced they’d become Mr. & Mrs. Wowee.

Things were great. And then they weren’t. Possibly, just possibly, one reason was Arki was super-rich. Was. Maybe still a little bit is. But for sure, was. This Swiss moneyman lost a bundle in Operation Madoff. It was rumored he could lose Uma. In any case, she recently told me mommyhood had forced her to table career offers and she wanted back to work.

Whatever, came a spat. She walked out in a huff. There was no serious intent to break up, but it made the other side think this engagement should maybe be broken off. So she drew first blood, but it was only a nick. He killed it off, and the waltz has ended. Quietly. And politely. As happens in that small circle of the world’s most privileged beings.

I don’t know more. I’m lucky I know this. For some miserable reason I seem not the first person either has seen fit to call. My lone message to Miss Uma is, in the words of a once much younger Zsa Zsa Gabor: “Dahlink, ven you break up an engagement, it is proper to send back the ring — but keep the stone.”

THE Kennedy Center doings included a loooooong forever interminable not-to-be-understood receiving line. Reason? The secretary of state’s mate Bill Clinton, standing with her, schmoozed every human who crept by . . . Fashion note: Adam Duritz in bright green lace-up shoes . . . More fashion note and more shoes: Emmy Rossum in sparkling, studded, platform, 6-inch-high, strappy black sandals: “Giuseppe Zanotti. From Saks on sale. Plus I already had a gift certificate, so I’d almost have lost money if I didn’t get them.” They were $500 . . . Scarlett Johansson, who opens Jan. 14 in the Cort’s 14-week run of “A View From the Bridge,” doing a 10 a.m. photo shoot Wednesday at restaurant Etcetera Etcetera . . . Whoopi Goldberg to London. A show before the queen about Whoopi’s film “Sister Act” . . . Alex McCord of “The Real Housewives of New York City,” who’s probably never had a meal in her own house, and Simon van Kempen at Water’s Edge for dinner.

PUBLIC relations man Ken Sunshine‘s Christmas invite has a photo of Mrs. Salahi in her red who’s-sari-now dress with the logo: “This party’s harder to crash than the White House,” plus a Tiger Woods photo saying, “And more exclusive than Tiger’s black book.” It should only be as entertaining . . . More yuletide: Wonder if the Federal Reserve’s Ben Bernanke recalls his college days when he wrote and performed skits at holiday dos.

DEC. 15, 16, 17 it’s the Il Divo quartet at the Beacon. Said their handsome, tal ented, handsome, famous and hand some tenor David Miller: “A Christmas tour is brand-new for us. We never did this before. We’re usually staging things to play to an audience, and there’s eye contact. This is more like a concert with mike stands in front of us. We’ve been prepping it for two months. And we normally work with a reduced orchestra. The Beacon will have 45 musicians. Two of the guys never worked with a conductor before. It’s unchartered territory.

“Reasons we’re doing this is, duh, why not? We started talking about it a year ago but Simon Cowell put a damper on it. We’ve already recorded a Christmas album, which for some reason he hates and hasn’t even released yet in the UK.”

As to the Il Divos harmonizing offstage, it’s: “Socially, that’s hit or miss. In real life, we’re scattered. I’m from Colorado, but I love New York, and it’s where I live. For two of the boys, home is the UK, and one lives in the mountains near France. We’re on the road together eight months, travel every two days. Our wives meet up at places when it’s a big stretch away. The show is energetically taxing. I’m one who goes to my room, takes a hot shower, does yoga and, being a techno geek, plays with my bits and bobs — electronics, mikes, cameras, tripods, lights — which I schlep along. I’m the group’s videographer. For myself, I pack sparingly. Clothes all go in one bag.

“And right now I have to go back to rehearsal.”

AND excuse me, but no room’s left for an Only in New York.