'Hollow Knight: Silksong' Believers Have Been Applying Clown Makeup For Years
Social media watchdogs were left doing math after Page Six reported that once-prominent comedian Dane Cook, now 50 years old, proposed to his "longtime" girlfriend Kelsi Taylor, who's 23. How long is "longtime?" Five years apparently, meaning Taylor had been right around legal age when they met.
“Dane Cook , 50, engaged to his longtime love, 23, after 5 years of dating”
Us: pic.twitter.com/JtiTxfIE89— comedianwasalu 🇵🇸 (@comedianwasalu) August 3, 2022
This drew concern from many on social media, considering grooming has been such a hot topic of late thanks to people attempting to weaponize the term to describe members of the LGBTQ community or teachers who educate their students about non-heterosexual sexualities per the Don't Say Gay Bill. In its proper usage, the term means to foster a platonic relationship with a minor with the intention of making it sexual once the minor turns legal age.
The way "groomer" has been repurposed as an anti-LGBTQ slur makes it more difficult to talk about actual grooming like Dane Cook marrying a woman he's known since she was a child. Which would be why people started using it as an anti-LGBTQ slur--to protect predatory cishet men.
— Kathryn Brightbill (@KEBrightbill) August 4, 2022
According to what is known of the pair's dating timeline, their relationship was never technically illegal, but the specifics of when they met and when they started dating are murky according to many. Taylor turned 18 on October 26th, 2016. Cook posted a picture of the two of them together on April 11th, 2017. Though it's not an outright "Instagram official" declaration of the pair's relationship, it appears they did become a couple that year.
In 2019, Cook revealed the pair met when she attended a game night at his residence, though he doesn't specify when that game night took place. "We were friends for a while & soon after fell in like with each [other] and then upgraded to love," he said.
The pair traded sappy messages on social media between 2017 and now without too much controversy. Cook previously shrugged off comments about their age differences in public appearances, joking that the only thing they have to worry about is that he will likely die significantly earlier than she does.
News of their engagement brought widespread disapproval from many social media users who felt that even though the pair may not have ever been in a legally problematic relationship, it was still "icky" that Cook was engaged to someone less than half his age.
Here's a 27 year old Dane Cook in the music video for Smash Mouth's All Star. Somewhere his future fiancée was just born. pic.twitter.com/4fUgKl2hmq
— Soundwave (@LocalSoundwave) August 3, 2022
I had a huuuuge crush on Dane Cook in middle school. Had no idea I was too old for him.
— Jessica Singer (@jessicasdumthot) August 3, 2022
Wow crazy to think that while I was in high school being all like “Dane Cook isn’t funny, he just shouts things”, his fiancée was developing fine motor skills and her sense of object permanence 🥰✨🙏🏻
— little hoot 🫠 (@hoot_little) August 3, 2022
Despite the controversy online, the pair seems publicly over the moon in love with each other. Cook had previously seemed set on never getting married but obviously changed his mind when it came to Taylor. In 2019, Cook told Jimmy Kimmel, "Sometimes I actually find myself saying like, ‘Where has she been all my life?' And then I realize she wasn't alive for the first 26 years of it."
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