Karlie Kloss, Serena Williams and Emma Watson have all been drawn to men who work in the tech industry. Photo / Gettys
Karlie Kloss, Serena Williams and Emma Watson have all been drawn to men who work in the tech industry. Photo / Gettys
Once upon a time, the celebrity dating scene was a parade of models draping themselves over rock stars - think Helena Christensen with Michael Hutchence, Eva Herzigova with Tico Torres and Naomi Campbell with U2's Adam Clayton.
A rocker boyfriend might come with certain bad habits, from chain-smoking to eyeing up other women, but bagging a bad boy was universally accepted as the fastest way to boost your profile.
How times have changed. Because in these internet-obsessed days, you are nobody unless you have a tech genius - preferably a billionaire tech genius - on your arm.
Although they're more likely to be found working all hours and adopting a strict vegetarian diet than partying the night away, these founders of social media websites and obscure internet companies are the new must-have mates.
From actress/model Amber Heard, who is dating Elon Musk, the tech billionaire behind Tesla cars, and has just posted a picture on social media of him covered in her lipstick, to model Lily Cole and Kwane Ferreira, the pairing of Beauty and the Geek has never been more in vogue.
Even tennis queen Serena Williams is engaged to Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of the social news website Reddit. She revealed last week that she is expecting a child with him. So, why have they fallen for these distinctly unglamorous billionaires? Here, we reveal all .
Arguably the greatest female player in tennis history, Serena is reportedly worth more than £110 million. She dated tennis bad boy Grigor Dimitrov - who broke her heart when he dumped her for leggy blonde rival Maria Sharapova.
Shy, bearded and 6ft 5in, Ohanian set up social network site Reddit, which allows users to debate news stories online, when he was 22. A year later he sold it for £15 million, but stayed on as chairman. His campaigns for free speech online have won him the nickname 'Mayor of the Internet' from techy fans.
HOW THEY MET: It was by chance at a restaurant in Rome in July 2015. They then had a whirlwind romance, and got engaged after a visit to the same eaterie that December. He has travelled the world to cheer her on from the stands, and calls the woman expecting his child his 'queen'.
HOW THEY LIVE: Ohanian's home is a loft apartment in Brooklyn, New York, with a cat called Karma and, a human-sized version of Reddit's mascot, an alien called Snoo. His bride-to-be, meanwhile, is full-on bling: she has a 'purse room' in her Florida mansion for her immense handbag collection, drives a Bentley and wears diamond rings so large they have given her blisters. Her enormous house, part of a gated golf community, is worth £3 million and neighbours include sportsmen Ernie Els and Michael Jordan.
ROMANCE RATING: The love affair has made Serena dizzy enough to compose poetry. She posted of his proposal: 'Down on one knee / He said 4 words / And I said yes.'
She is probably best known for her disastrous two-year marriage to actor Johnny Depp. Amber's worth £10 million, and famously donated the £5.5 million she was awarded in her divorce to charity.
THE GEEK: ELON MUSK, 45
Musk is a firm believer in his own genius - and has an £11 billion fortune to back up his self-belief. He founded the company which became PayPal, owns the company which makes Tesla electric cars, and is a pioneer of space flights who wants to colonise Mars. He also has a complex romantic history - he has five sons, twins and triplets, by first wife, Justine, an author. He then married British actress Tallulah Riley in 2010, before divorcing her in 2012. They remarried the next year, but have divorced again. The petition was finalised in late 2016. Good luck, Amber!
HOW THEY MET: He became infatuated with Amber after they appeared in the 2013 film Machete Kills, and wrote to the director Robert Rodriguez many times asking him to set up a meeting. He wrote: 'Am not angling for a date. I know she's in a long-term relationship, but . . . Amber just seems like an interesting person to meet.' They started dating last summer.
HOW THEY LIVE: Last year he bought a £20 million ultra-modern mansion in Bel Air, Los Angeles. He has a Gulfstream G6 jet and numerous cars including the Lotus Esprit car from James Bond's The Spy Who Loved Me.
ROMANCE RATING: The pair are head over heels - and went ziplining together in Australia, where she is filming, over the weekend. Amber's father David has said: "She would love to get married. One of the things they want to do is settle down and have a family."
9/10
Emma Watson is dating tech entrepreneur William Knight. Photo / Getty
BEAUTY: EMMA WATSON, 27
As Belle in Beauty and the Beast and a UN Ambassador, Watson has parlayed her child stardom in Harry Potter into a genuinely impressive career and £55 million fortune. These days she divides her time between campaigning for women's issues and sharing worthy Instagram shots of her eco-conscious outfits, made using recycled plastic, fabric off-cuts and the like.
A Princeton graduate from a wealthy New York family, he works with his identical twin brother at Medallia, a Silicon Valley start-up that helps businesses manage customer feedback.
He calls himself a 'tech/entrepreneurship enthusiast, business school grad, writer, artist, photographer, adventurer, naturalist, etc' - meaning he has nearly as many job titles as she does. But with a reported salary of just £120,000, he has a long way to go to match her riches.
HOW THEY MET: Apparently introduced by friends on the charity circuit, they were seen watching the musical Hamilton together in October 2015. Since then they have visited Oxford, California, New York and London.
HOW THEY LIVE: Between them they have homes across the globe. Nonetheless, she is said to adore his down-to-earth nature, while his family are keen too - in February, his mother Katherine said: "I have met Emma, and she's a wonderful girl."
ROMANCE RATING: Private but passionate. She said this year: "I've noticed, in Hollywood, who you're dating gets tied up into your film promotion and becomes part of the performance and the circus. I would hate anyone that I were with to feel like they were in any way part of a show or an act."
Lily Cole and Kwame Ferreira met when he helped Cole launch a new website. Photo / Getty
BEAUTY: LILY COLE, 29
Raised in London by her artist mother, Lily was on the cover of Vogue aged 16 and named Model of the Year in 2004. Somehow, she also managed to gain a double first in History of Art at Cambridge University and enjoy relationships with Jude Law and Jack Dorsey, founder of social media site Twitter. Oh, and set up a sustainable knitwear company, The North Circular, and build up a fortune of roughly £8 million.
THE GEEK: KWAME FERREIRA, 39
He describes himself as a "helicopter pilot, veggie barbecue enthusiast and occasional social anthropologist with an appetite for mid-16th-century Nepalese painting and boats". His day job, however, is as founder and CEO of the modestly named Kwamecorp, which consults on 'innovation' for technology giants including Samsung and Intel. The most recent accounts put the company's total assets at just over £1 million.
HOW THEY MET: Romance blossomed in 2013 while Lily was setting up impossible.com - a website where people ask strangers for favours or cash donations - and he offered investment and technical help.
She said: "After working together for a long time Kwame and I fell in love." But while the path to true love ran smoothly, the same could not be said for impossible.com. Cole faced criticism for receiving £200,000 from a government innovation fund to launch the site, which lost £257,889 in 2015. It is now 'covering itself', she has said.
HOW THEY LIVE: The couple live in North London with baby daughter Wylde, born in September 2015. Close friends include Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia. Lily loves French films, cooking vegetarian curries and walks in the park - and is a fervent supporter of the Green Party. He has three degrees, including one in Classical Fine Arts.
ROMANCE RATING: An office romance with a fashionable twist.
7/10
Joshua Kushner and Karlie Kloss have been together for five years. Photo / Getty
BEAUTY: KARLIE KLOSS, 24
American supermodel Karlie has been a Victoria's Secret Angel for three years. She started modelling at 14 and now has her own YouTube channel, Klossy - and a net worth of £12million.
Harvard graduate Kushner, on the other hand, is worth more than £100 million. His venture capital company, Thrive Capital, has invested in a series of successful phone apps, including Instagram, and he recently set up a health insurance company too, Oscar Health.
His family are real estate moguls, which can't hurt - although his father Charles was sentenced to two years in prison in 2005 for illegal donations to politicians, witness tampering and tax evasion. Then, of course, there's his connection to the White House. Joshua's brother Jared, 36, is married to Ivanka Trump and a senior adviser to father-in-law Donald.
HOW THEY MET: A mystery - but they've been dating for five years.
HOW THEY LIVE: She owns a £2.5 million apartment in New York's West Village. A photospread in Vogue reveals acres of white surfaces and soft furnishings. He is a relative Luddite who doesn't have a blog or use Twitter and Instagram - but he does go with her on holidays to St Barth's, which she documents online.
ROMANCE RATING: She has posted a series of gushing online tributes - 'I love you more every day', one proclaims - but so far he has offered no public reciprocation. Reports last month that he had finally proposed were quickly denied by Kloss's team.
