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SAFER SEX?

Why So Many Powerful Women Fall For Their Bodyguards

The long-anonymous security figure is edging into the foreground. And the man scanning the exits may have more than stranger danger on his mind.

Joanna ColesChief Creative and Content Officer

PublishedMar 31, 2026, 1:40 PM EDT

UpdatedMar 31, 2026, 1:40 PM EDT

Updated Mar 31, 2026, 1:40 PM EDTPublished Mar 31, 2026, 1:40 PM EDT

Politics as theatre. Celebrity as currency. Wellness as religion. And power as the only real language in the room. Subscribe to PRIMAL SCREAM with Joanna Coles on Substack for exclusive news, reviews, and commentary.

A prominent producer friend of mine once called, fizzing with irritation.

His lead actress—a recognizable name on the indie circuit and newly burnished by awards—was insisting on her own bodyguard for an HBO series she was working on. The first season had gone well, but then suddenly she had gone high-maintenance.

He balked at the cost. After all, they’d just done a publicity tour together and, as he put it, “when we were out and about, literally no one approached her.”

The studio eventually agreed to compromise: they would provide security for her on set only. But my producer friend quickly realized that wasn’t the point. The bodyguard wasn’t about safety. He was about status. About arriving at the Beverly Hills Hotel Polo Bar and directing your man-with-the-earpiece to sit alongside the other men talking into their wrist watches—a couture accessory, only taller. Ripped.

Which brings us to a more combustible evolution of the genre: The bodyguard not as prop, but as temptation and plot.

Consider Kyrsten Sinema, the peripatetic former senator from Arizona whose personal life now comes with timestamps, locations, and legal filings. In a sworn declaration, Sinema has admitted to an affair with her former bodyguard, Matthew Ammel—an entanglement that began, with almost cinematic neatness, while he was on security detail with her in Sonoma, California.

What follows reads less like a romance and more like an insurance salesman’s travel itinerary: New York in June, Washington in July, Aspen in August, back to Washington in September, and Phoenix in October. How do we know? Because the relationship is now at the center of a lawsuit filed by Ammel’s ex-wife in North Carolina under the state’s gloriously archaic “alienation of affection” law, accusing Sinema of breaking up a 14-year marriage and seeking damages of $75,000.

Sinema’s legal defense hinges on geography: yes, the affair happened, but never in North Carolina—so not, she argues, in a jurisdiction that can punish her. Kevin Costner, eat your heart out.

Then there’s Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who also just took a spin in the news cycle after a member of her security detail quit amid an investigation over the alleged crossing of professional lines. (Chavez-DeRemer has denied impropriety.)

Complicating matters further, Chavez-DeRemer’s husband, Shawn DeRemer, was, at one point, prevented from entering a government building after employees there alleged that he acted improperly toward them. One filed a police complaint alleging unconsensual sexual contact. (DeRemer has also denied the allegations.) Hunting Wives subplot, anyone?

Also crossing boundaries is now former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and her long-rumored side piece, Corey Lewandowski. He’s not technically Noem’s bodyguard, but he does provide protection as a political enforcer who controls access, manages threats, and creates a human force field around his principal. (Noem has denied that she is in a romantic relationship with Lewandowski.)

So, for women in power, why is the bodyguard so alluring?

Because proximity is an accelerant. These women live in tightly controlled ecosystems—staffed, scheduled, scrutinized. The bodyguard is an anomaly: ever-present, rarely questioned, licensed to be close in ways no aide or regular colleague could be. He sees the unvarnished version, the exhaustion, the irritation, the heels-off, off-script moments. Despite this, he remains devoted. It’s his job to defend her with his very life if need be. That’s a potent cocktail.

There’s also a role reversal that gives the whole “thing” its charge. The woman holds the institutional power; the title, the office, the authority, the paycheck. The man holds the physical power; the strength, the readiness, the latent violence.

Contrast that with the dreary male cliché. When male politicians stray, it’s almost never with the person carrying the Glock. It’s the aide, the college intern, the junior staffer or the nanny. A male boss choosing to have an affair with his bodyguard would feel almost avant-garde.

But there’s nothing sexy about an HR department. Which raises the question: Is there a way to slow this trend down?

One answer is structural. More female bodyguards assigned to female principals. Change the dynamic, and you change the possibilities.

One of my favorite examples came from Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf who, when confronted with mounting allegations that UN peacekeepers were raping and abusing local women, pushed for a simple but consequential shift: more female peacekeepers.

Backed by the UN, all-female police units were posted to Liberia, where their presence not only reduced reports of abuse but also encouraged more victims to report crimes. Sirleaf’s intervention is a case study in how changing the gender composition of security forces can alter behavior on the ground, and, crucially, restore trust.

Or perhaps the solution will be more quietly negotiated: spouses like Heather Ammel will insist on gender-matched protection, a kind of modern-day chaperoning disguised as protocol.

Either way, the anonymous bodyguard is edging into the foreground. And the man scanning the exits may have more than stranger danger on his mind.

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Joanna Coles

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Joanna ColesChief Creative and Content Officer

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