Verne Troyer, “just 2ft 8ins tall, made a million dollars playing Mini Me in the Austin Powers movies — but he wined and dined actress Ranae Shrider in McDonald’s and gave her jewellery ‘from an arcade machine’. Ranae, who at 5ft 6ins towered above Verne, says he ordered her around ‘like a slave’. She ran his errands and read out his bizarre fan mail while he spent all day googling his own name… Ranae says she initially felt no attraction for Verne, and when he asked for her number at the party she gave it to him ‘as a joke’. But he called at 10am the next day and she agreed to meet him out of curiosity. She said: ‘Our first date was at his house. We just watched American Idol and played video games. Back then Verne was living in a guesthouse at the back of his manager’s house. ‘It was a specially designed for him, with a miniature futon and miniature bathroom and so on, with the lights all on a lower level so he could reach them. But I wasn’t freaked out. I’m an odd person myself and not a lot weirds me out. I don’t date normal people! ‘I started going to his house every evening and before long I started falling for him. We had our first kiss after the  first few dates. We were lying on the bed and I just leaned over and kissed him. Verne is a good kisser and he seemed like a pretty cool guy — and that was the attraction. But first impressions can be deceptive.’ Ranae says she held out for a month before sleeping with Verne — then decided she would only to test her true feelings for him. But their first night together was anything but romantic. Ranae said: ‘To be honest, most of the night was horrible. I closed my eyes and thought ‘charity work’, meaning I was doing it for him and not me.’ Ranae claims their sex life never got any better  — much to the  frustration of Verne, who suffers from dwarfism. ‘In the time we were together we made love only six times as I would always find excuses for why I couldn’t do it,’ she said. ‘Verne would get mad and tell me that if we were not having sex we could never be anything more than friends.” — Mirror (UK)

Here is a snapshot showing Ms. Shrider with Mini Me. And here is a more sultry photograph of the would-be actress. It would be nice to think about the two finding the inner beauty in each other — she overlooking Mr. Troyer’s dwarfism, he overlooking her, um, well, maybe just looking her over. For it is clear that her outer beauty was no match for the inner ugliness that the relationship brought out in both of them. According to Ms. Shrider’s account, Mr. Troyer is a mean little son of a bitch. But it is difficult not to suspect the worst of her too. Her “romantic” feelings for the celebrity dwarf may well have been driven by her own ambitions. Even if they weren’t, it is not exactly a demonstration of noble character for her to be blabbing about his sex life, drinking habits, and chronic depression to the tabloids. How much did they pay her?

If there is a moral to the story, it’s that they both got pretty much what they should have expected from a mutually exploitative relationship. It’s a sordid, not a perverse, tale. However, you do have to wonder about Ms. Shrider’s assertion that she doesn’t “date normal people.” What does that mean? She prefers to date abnormal people? Does her dating history contain a parade of circus freaks — dwarves, fat ladies, sword swallowers, hirsute women?

If you google around, you’ll find other interviews in which Ms Shrider offers sensationalistic details of her relationship. (”For a small guy he’s quite well endowed. I had no complaints.”) You’ll also find plenty of pictures of the ill-matched couple. Viewing them, you may find it difficult not to agree with Ms. Shrider that there’s something “abnormal” about her former relationship. Doubtless there are happy, loving couples in which one suffers from dwarfism and the other doesn’t. But at the same time, you view these pictures with midget porn and pedophilia echoing in your head. If Ms. Shrider were pursuing the relationship for careerist reasons, it makes the story garish. If she were pursuing it because she fetishized dwarves, it would be perverse. Do you think that intention is what separates the lurid from the deviant?

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