Barbie and Ken are no longer an item and the word has many in a frenzy. Living in a de facto relationship for the past 43 years the unmarried pair have weathered through many rumours on their relationship from Ken's sexuality to Barbie's philandering ways with the many suitors.
"Barbie and Ken have always been an extraordinary couple with so much on- and off-screen chemistry," said their business manager, Russell Arons, Vice President Marketing, Mattel. "In fact, they just finished wrapping their fourth movie together, Barbie as The Princess and the Pauper, which debuts this fall. And now they feel it's time to spend some quality time—apart."
The wrap of their movie parallels one time Hollywood power couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman who soon split after dead Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, also their fourth together. Cruise was also plagued by rumours of homosexuality and having joined a science-fiction religious group.
For years the couple—Barbie and Ken—have also tried all sorts of role play fantasies. From Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler to Lily and Herman Munster the pair have never shied from experimenting with ways to heat plastic by friction. It is this though, that have led some to conclude that the couple's diminishing sexual drives and desires led toward the pair's downfall.
Groups who have long since denounced the relationship as sinful are said to be elated at the news.
Written on Friday, 13 February 2004