Plenty of celeb couples’ love stories started with adorable meet-cutes that are basically straight out of a rom-com. Some, however, start as the villains in someone else’s story — and you may be shocked to find out who!
Here are 15 celeb couples who started as alleged affairs:
1.
Tom Hanks was married to Samantha Lewes, whom he’d been with since college, when he met Rita Wilson on the set of Bosom Buddies. However, she was just a one-off guest star, and their paths didn’t cross again until they costarred in Volunteers four years later. While playing love interests, Tom and Rita fell in love behind the scenes.
He told Esquire, “We’re deep in the jungles of Mexico… It was a magical setting to fall in love and very reflective of our love ever since. Every night, we’d take over the coffee shop. It was a beautiful thing to fall in love around John Candy. Life is always a party — more papas fritas! So much fun, so ideal. Rita and I looked at each other and — ka-boing — that was that. Well, yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, I did happen to be married at the time. And there’s nothing to celebrate about that. But the reality is, it was a young marriage and a difficult marriage. I had two kids, great kids. And I wasn’t so naive not to think that there were going to be repercussions. But I knew what was and was not. I asked Rita if it was the real thing for her, and it just couldn’t be denied.”
Tom and Rita made their red carpet debut in 1986, and his divorce was finalized a year later. The new couple tied the knot in 1988, and they went on to have two sons, Chet and Truman.
2.
The Great British Bake Off judge Prue Leith had a 13-year affair with author/property developer Rayne Kruger. At the time, he was married to actor Nan Munro, who was Prue’s mom’s best friend.
On the podcast White Wine Question Time, Prue said, “I never asked him to leave his wife because I was very happy… I had none of the duties of life and all of the pleasures of somebody who loved me. I wasn’t pressing for marriage. We did have 13 secret years and nobody ever guessed because we were discreet. It was easier in a way because he was a family friend, chairman of my company, and he’d helped me enormously, and everyone knew we were great friends.”
Prue and Rayne decided to come clean about their affair when she became pregnant with their son, Danny. The couple got married in 1974 and later adopted their daughter, Li-Da. They were together until his death in 2002.
3.
When Wicked began filming in 2023, Ariana Grande was married to realtor Dalton Gomez, and Ethan Slater was married to clinical psychologist Lilly Jay. Sources told People that both couples were separated before Ariana and Ethan began dating in 2023. However, Lilly reportedly told Page Six, “[Ariana’s] the story, really. Not a girl’s girl. My family is just collateral damage. The story is her and Dalton.”
In an essay for the Cut a year later, she said, “I really never thought I would get divorced. Especially not just after giving birth to my first child and especially not in the shadow of my husband’s new relationship with a celebrity. In this season of shock and mourning, over a year after the end of my marriage was made public, I deeply miss the life of invisibility I created for myself as a psychologist specializing in women’s mental health.”
4.
When Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz first met as teenagers, she “didn’t really like him that much.” She told Marie Claire UK that she initially found him “too ostentatious” and “annoying.” He went on to marry Mashonda in 2004, but four years later, rumors circulated that he was dating Alicia, which he denied.
However, in 2009, Alicia tweeted, “[In] love, is it better to go [for] the choice that is smart or the choice that has spark?” Mashonda replied, “My concern with [Alicia Keys] is no longer the fact that she assisted in destroying a family but that she has the audacity to make these selfish comments about love and wanting to be with someone, even after knowing their situation. I feel that after [one] and a half years of you hiding this affair and acting like it [doesn’t] exist, that now is the time to confront it, since you talk so openly about it now… You have no idea how much pain I was caused because of this affair.”
This wasn’t the first time Swizz Beatz faced infidelity allegations during his relationship with Mashonda. They reportedly began dating in 1998, and he had a child with Nicole Levy in 2000. Then, four years into his marriage, he had an affair and a child with singer Jahna Sebastian.
In 2004, he divorced Mashonda and married Alicia. The new couple went on to have two children, Egypt and Genesis.
In her 2008 memoir sTORI Telling, Tori wrote, “I told [Charlie] that I’d never been in love with him. I loved him, and he’d been a friend to me, but I married him because he was a great guy, a guy who took care of me. Charlie didn’t want to hear it. He kept saying, ‘Where’s all this coming from? We have a perfect relationship.’ Then he turned to me. ‘Did you cheat on me?’ I said yes. He said, ‘It was with Dean, wasn’t it?’ I said yes. He said, ‘I should have known.'”
6.
While vacationing in Barbados in 2004, Simon Cowell befriended Lauren Silverman and her then-husband, real estate developer Andrew Silverman. Rumors of Simon and Lauren’s affair first began circulating in 2012, and the following year, news broke that they were expecting a child together. Lauren and Andrew filed for divorce.
7.
When Eddie Cibrian and LeAnn Rimes costarred in the 2009 Lifetime movie Northern Lights, he was married to The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills cast member Brandi Glanville, and she was married to Dean Sheremet. Eddie and LeAnn had an affair on set, leading to both their marriages ending in divorce in 2010.
In her 2013 memoir Drinking and Tweeting: And Other Brandi Blunders, Brandi recalled going on a double date with LeAnn and Dean when she visited Eddie in Calgary during filming. She wrote, “And this woman, whom I had just met, spent more time flirting with my husband than acknowledging her own. And Dean, bless his heart, ate his sushi, laughed at all the right moments, and pretended that he didn’t see exactly what was in front of him. As the evening progressed, every time LeAnn made some sort of inappropriate advance toward my husband – a whisper, a giggle, or a reach across the ever-shrinking table – Eddie squeezed my hand a little tighter. And as if on cue, Eddie would lean over the table, every so often, to offer me a nervous, overly tongue-y kiss to gauge my current state of mind.”
LeAnn and Eddie got married in 2011. She told Flow State, “I realized very quickly that there are a lot of women who’ve been hurt. Like, I’ve been on both sides of that coin — I’ve been cheated on, too, so I know that feeling. But so many women don’t know what to do with that anger… I was a target that was just easily projected upon. And once I realized that, things got a lot easier. Instead of taking it so personally, it’s like, look: This is not all my pain to carry. I know what I’m responsible for in the situation and making amends for that. But you know, the world’s pain is not mine to carry, and I think that really got thrown at me for a long time.”
8.
Ted Danson had been married to Cassandra Coates for 11 years when he first crossed paths with Whoopi Goldberg on The Arsenio Hall Show in 1988. However, it wasn’t until they played love interests in the 1993 comedy Made in America that sparks flew. Initially, they kept their relationship hidden, but after it reached the tabloids, Cassandra filed for divorce.
Ted and Whoopi dated for about a year and a half. Their split reportedly boiled down to the intense scrutiny they faced as well as their differences. She told Closer, “It was really painful, and it was very public. And the loss of his friendship hurts a great deal. We can never go and have a soda, anywhere. I’m friends with almost every man I’ve gone out with, except this man.”
9.
Billy Bob Thornton and Laura Dern started dating after they both guest-starred on the famous 1997 Ellen episode, “The Puppy Episode” (aka Ellen’s coming-out episode). They even got engaged. Two years into the relationship, Laura had to film a project out of town. While she was away, Billy Bob’s working relationship with his Pushing Tin costar Angelina Jolie allegedly got romantic, and they got married. There was one major issue — he didn’t tell Laura (you know, his fiancée) that he was marrying someone else!
Laura told Talk magazine, “I left our home to work on a movie, and while I was away, my boyfriend got married, and I’ve never heard from him again. It’s like a sudden death. For no one has there been any closure or clarity.”
In 2000, Angelina and Billy Bob reportedly eloped in Las Vegas, wearing jeans in their 20-minute ceremony. The couple became quite infamous for wearing necklaces containing each other’s blood. However, they divorced in 2003.
10.
Billy Crudup had been in a relationship with Mary-Louise Parker for about seven years when he met his Stage Beauty costar Claire Danes. When Mary Louise was seven months pregnant, Billy reportedly ended their relationship so he could be with Claire (who was dating singer Ben Lee at the time).
The new couple faced a ton of public scrutiny, but Claire got the worst of it. She later told Howard Stern, “That was a scary thing. That was really hard. I didn’t know how to not do that… I was just in love with him and needed to explore that, and I was 24… I didn’t quite know what those consequences would be.”
Claire and Billy dated from 2003 to 2006. Then, nearly 20 years later, they crossed paths again at the NYU Tisch Gala 2025, where they were filmed hugging and having a brief conversation.
11.
Ralph Fiennes and Alex Kingston started dating as students at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and got married a decade later. However, two years into their marriage, he allegedly left her for Francesca Annis, who played his mom in a theatrical production of Hamlet. Ralph and Alex’s divorce was finalized in 1997.
His new relationship with Francesca didn’t last forever. In 2006, they ended things amid rumors that he had an alleged affair with a singer. Alex later told the Standard, “I know nothing about it, other than that I’m told they are no longer together. I feel no connection to him or to her now. It’s been so long, I can’t quite believe I was ever married to him.”
12.
Only two months into her marriage with cartoonist Spencer McCallum (with whom she shared a 2-year-old son), Keeley Hawes fell in love with her Spooks costar Matthew Macfadyen on set. She told the Standard, “Matthew just came straight out with it and said, ‘I love you’ in the rain one day. I thought, Oh dear, here we go.”
In 2004, she divorced Spencer and married Matthew. Their son, Ralph, was born two months after the wedding, and they later welcomed their daughter Maggie.
13.
Kenneth Branagh was still married to his Fortunes of War costar Emma Thompson when he struck up a relationship with Helena Bonham Carter on the set of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in 1993.
His divorce was finalized in 1995, and his relationship with Helena lasted until 1999.
The heartbreak Emma experienced fueled her performance in Love Actually. She told the Telegraph, “I’ve had so much bloody practice at crying in a bedroom, then having to go out and be cheerful, gathering up the pieces of my heart and putting them in a drawer.”
14.
Debbie Reynolds and Elizabeth Taylor were friends from the time they were teenagers, going to class on the studio lot together. Years down the road, they went on frequent double dates with their respective husbands, Eddie Fisher and Mike Todd. However, Mike died in a plane crash only a year into his marriage to Elizabeth. Shortly after, she moved on with Eddie.
Eddie divorced Debbie and married Elizabeth in 1959. He reportedly said, “I divorced Debbie and married Elizabeth the day I finished my run at the Tropicana… It was a typical two-rabbi Jewish ceremony. As usual, Elizabeth was late for her own wedding… We were married under the chuppah, a canopy, and as is traditional, at the end of the ceremony, I stomped on a wineglass.”
15.
And finally, Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher didn’t find happily ever after. She famously had an affair with costar Richard Burton (who was married to Sybil Williams at the time) on the set of 1963’s Cleopatra. She reportedly said, “The first day on the set, he was hungover and very vulnerable, and his hands were shaking. He asked me to hold a coffee cup up to his lips, and I was gone.”
Their affair was reportedly “so obvious.” Richard and Sybil divorced in 1963, and Elizabeth and Eddie divorced the following year. The new couple were famously married twice — their first marriage lasted from 1964 to 1974, and their second lasted from 1975 to 1976.
But that’s not the end of the story! Debbie and Elizabeth actually managed to repair their friendship. Debbie reportedly said, “We got on the same boat to go to Europe — the Queen Elizabeth. I sent a note to her, and she sent a note to me in passing, and then we had dinner together. She was married to Richard Burton by then. I had been remarried at that point. And we just said, ‘Let’s call it a day.’ And we got smashed. And we had a great evening and stayed friends since then.”
If your relationship started through cheating, how did it happen? What was the fallout like? Do you have any regrets? Share your experiences in the comments or in the anonymous comments box below!
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