Reese Witherspoon brought one to a premiere. Nicole Kidman sat poolside with another in Portofino. Olivia Rodrigo picnicked in the park with one. Andy Cohen recently announced he's dating one.

This summer, private-equity guys are getting an A-list boost.

As firms face an exit slowdown and a yearslong fundraising slump, an unexpected wave of good PR has come in the form of paparazzi photos featuring high-profile pairings. The barbarians of buyouts past, it seems, are now the sought-after boyfriends of the beautiful and famous.

"If you live in the celebrity bubble, party after party, with the same people -- the same 25 people -- life gets really boring," said Kevin O'Leary, the businessman and "Shark Tank" panelist. "When you end up with a private-equity guy, your life gets far more interesting."

O'Leary, who has served on middle-market fund Genstar Capital's advisory board, heard Witherspoon speak at Harvard Business School last fall. She was joined by Oliver Haarmann, a founder of the firm Searchlight Capital Partners, which has more than $17 billion in assets under management. The pair have been photographed yachting in St. Tropez, holding hands in London and attending the premiere of the "Legally Blonde" prequel "Elle."

"The two of them actually were a hell of a team," O'Leary said of their rapport at the business-school event. "I can see why they're together." Haarmann declined to comment. Witherspoon didn't respond to a request for comment.

It's been a good run for single finance bros. Last summer, a viral Tiktoker crooned, "I'm looking for a man in finance, trust fund, six-five, blue eyes," turning spreadsheet warriors into the season's most eligible bachelors. Though the song may have been a joke about the state of modern dating, it rings true looking at the run of tabloid press on celebrities dating dealmakers.

"Whether they want to admit it or not, many women have always been attracted to bad boys and risk-takers," said Jordi Hays, a co-host of the technology industry talk show TBPN. "I can't think of any archetype of man that fits that description more today than capital allocators that put it all on the line every day in the markets."

These men represent a romantic departure for some of the celebrities, who've previously dated fellow creatives. "The pendulum tends to swing towards whatever had felt absent in the last relationship," said Devyn Simone Lock, a dating coach and matchmaker. "By going after finance guys, they're going after guys who tend to operate in a more linear mindset."

Johnny Hilbrant Partridge, a comedian who plays a caricature he calls "PE Guy" on social media, said that buyout firms have come to represent pop culture's image of Wall Street, just as investment banking did in the 1980s.

"I think people see 'private equity' and it does something to their brains the same way as seeing 'hedge fund' used to," he added.

While private equity's annualized returns have historically beaten the S&P 500, many recent funds have delivered weaker returns, according to Steven Kaplan, a professor at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business who studies private equity returns. The sector is stuck in a downturn that began in 2022, when the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates and fundraising started to decline. Now firms are sitting on a backlog of unsold portfolio companies, leaving investors impatient.

"Private equity has always been cyclical, and I would say now we're in a little bit of a down part of the cycle," said Kaplan.

But what about romantically? Kevin Cassidy, a 28-year-old former private-equity associate at New Mountain Capital, wasn't convinced that PE guys were in the midst of a starry glow-up.

"You could probably pick any profession and say that there's a handful of people that are dating celebrities," said Cassidy, founder of the private-investment firm Hanging Valley Holdings.

Still, Hollywood and Wall Street make for a natural pairing. Performers like Witherspoon and Kidman have become moguls in their own right. It is unsurprising that they'd want to link up with people whose lives are devoted to buying and selling companies for profit.

"Relationships, if you want to be analytical, are businesses," O'Leary said.