Katie is a Cougar - who knew!?

It turns out my husband has more in common with Katie Couric than being a grad of the University of Virginia. Apparently, they are both cradle robbers as well. Wahoo-wa.

I can't find a picture of Brooks, but I'm sure that will change shortly now that they're public.

As reported in The Post:


KATIE COUGAR
NEW LOVE IS 17 YRS. HER JUNIOR
By MARK BULLIET and JENNIFER FERMINO

April 12, 2007 -- Who cares about ratings when you've got your very own hunky triathlete on the mark and ready to go?

Katie Couric's dishy new boy toy is a good-looking, physically fit, almost 33-year-old East Sider with a posh pedigree.

Brooks Perlin - son of financier Sanford Perlin of Darien, Conn. - has been running around with the perky anchorwoman-turned-cougar for several months, according to a source.

"These are two private people and I respect that," said Sanford Perlin yesterday, when reached at his office at Kleos Capital Management.

His mother, Anne Perlin, 68, didn't want to comment on her son's new 50-year-old girlfriend. "I don't believe in any meddling in people's personal lives," she said. When pressed, she added, "It's a lovely story and I hope we don't ruin it."

Odds are Couric the cougar - a lighthearted term for older women who devour younger men - hopes the same. She has languished in the ratings since moving from NBC's "Today Show" to anchor the "CBS Evening News" last fall.

Her relationship with TV mogul Tom Werner fizzled in 2004. Since then, she had an on-again, off-again fling with jazz musician Chris Botti. But at 17 years her junior, Perlin could be the breath of fresh air she needs.

She's often spotted arriving in a limo at his tony East Side apartment building, close to Sutton Place. "She arrives at, like, 11," said one resident. "She's always in a suit and heels." The female resident also said that the perennially khaki-clad Perlin has a roving eye. "He's always checking out every girl who walks by," she complained.

Last July, Perlin competed in the Greenwich Cup triathlon - where he swam, ran, and cycled - and finished in an impressive one hour, 19 minutes and 16 seconds.

He also has a plummy academic background. He was known as "Woody" at the Hotchkiss School, a 100-year-old Connecticut boarding school, and he grew up in plush Darien. As a kid, he hammed it up in a performance of "The Music Man" at the Darien Arts Center, where his mother is on the board of directors. Then he was off to prestigious Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., where he played on the tennis team.

He met Couric - who lost her husband, Jay Monahan, the father of her two kids to cancer in 1998 - through mutual friends, said a source.

After months of being under the radar, the two recently went public, attending "The Year of Magical Thinking" on Broadway.