IS KATE BECKINSALE'S FLING WITH A TOYBOY REVENGE?

IS KATE BECKINSALE'S FLING WITH A TOYBOY REVENGE?



The kiss was straight out of central casting. He, in full control of the embrace, manfully clasps her jaw. She, tenderly submissive, is rooted to the spot, tousled hair tumbling over a bare shoulder.

Except this is no Hollywood love scene. Nor is it the usual illicit celebrity pairing of an older Alpha male caught canoodling with an ambitious young starlet.

No, the fledgling romance that is causing a stir in showbusiness circles is that between British actress Kate Beckinsale, 43, and little-known American actor Matt Rife, 21.

Those who missed the couple’s clinch outside a West Hollywood nightclub last week were given another chance to witness a very public display of affection at the weekend when the actress wrapped her arms protectively around her younger lover during a trip to the cinema and danced about him excitedly. Discreet, it wasn’t.

But then, fans of the winsome actress who was once a byword for elegance will have noticed that she has been behaving rather strangely of late.

Kate, who is 44 next month and who studied modern languages at Oxford, has recently taken to reinventing herself as a leading light in the world of shamelessly sexy selfies.

Rarely does a day pass, it seems, without the star posting attention-grabbing pictures of herself in various states of undress.

Pop a puppy in your bra? Why not. Provocative yoga pose in the kitchen while your pet dog looks up adoringly at your nether regions? Of course.

Celebrate your daughter getting into college with a picture — not of her exam results but of you with your legs encased around your former partner and father of your child? Certainly. Dance in your undies in a loo? Doesn’t everyone?

And now, as if to mark her complete metamorphosis into a woman in the grip of a midlife crisis, there is a toyboy lover, to boot.

How to explain this outlandish pairing? Well, Matt Rife is undoubtedly a young man who is easy on the eye. But it also seems relevant to note that Ms Beckinsale — who made her name in Hollywood first with a leading role in Pearl Harbor and then through the Underworld vampire flick franchise — is recovering from serious heartache.



Her marriage to American film director Len Wiseman came to an abrupt halt just under two years ago in rather humiliating circumstances when he was seen out on a date with an ambitious model two decades his junior.

The split must have been crushing for Kate, who spent 11 years with Wiseman after falling for him when he directed her in the first Underworld film.

She ended up requiring the services of divorce super-lawyer Laura Wasser to make sure that the departing Wiseman, who she had adored, did not get his hands on any of her post-separation earnings. The divorce is ongoing.



Neither of them has commented on the split but Wiseman, 44, was spotted earlier this year shopping for furniture with his new love, CJ Franco, who is noted for raunchy topless modelling shoots and resembles, in the unfair way which so often happens, a much younger version of Beckinsale.

Now, what’s sauce for the gander is clearly sauce for the goose, as Kate, hitherto the acme of respectability, seems delighted by her jaw-dropping, ego-boosting liaison with a young man who is — take that, Len Wiseman — a full two decades her junior.

Revenge, as many a 40-something spurned wife would no doubt testify, is a much younger dish served piping hot.

Certainly, Rife, a stand-up comedian and budding actor from Ohio, is more than a match for Kate in the Instagram stripping-off stakes, posting incessant pictures of his muscle-bound torso and soulful green eyes.

Earlier this year, he captioned a picture of himself reclining naked on a bed with the words: ‘Girl, you ready for your three minutes in heaven (foreplay included)?’



Others

Wiseman’s first wife, Dana, a kindergarten teacher, accused W