Celebrity Couples Who Started Their Relationships as Affairs

Yahoo

2 days ago

Over the years, celebrities have provided us with endless supplies of both incredible love stories and messy, dramatic splits.
And while we'll always have a soft spot for celeb love, especially when they gush about each other in candid interviews, celebrities have also been quite messy in the past, too. In fact, some beloved Hollywood couples began their relationships as full-on affairs. Whether one or both of them were married when they first met, some of these love stories have been nothing short of unconventional.
In early 2025, Sutton Foster and Hugh Jackman were the latest couple to seemingly confirm cheating rumors. According to several reports, the two started dating when they starred together on Broadway's Music Man back in 2021. The two were married at the time, but have since divorced their exes.
For more celeb couples who started out in affairs, scroll below.
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Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster were friends for years before romantic feelings started when they co-starred on Broadway's Music Man together in 2021. At the time, Jackman was still married to Deborra-Lee Furness, and Foster was married to Ted Griffin.
In September 2023, Jackman and Furness announced their separation after 27 years together. A month later, in October, Foster filed for divorce from Griffin the following October, and affair allegations reached an all-time high.
'Deborra-Lee was blindsided when she found out about the affair through the run of the show,' one source told Us Weekly. 'I think many people were shocked [Jackman] could do this to her.'
Jackman and Foster went public with their relationship in January 2025. Furness filed for divorce in May 23, 2025.
We all remember the scandal back in 2009 when Northern Lights co-stars LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian got together, despite both of them being married at the time. Rimes was married to chef Dean Sheremet while Cibrian was married to The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum Brandi Glanville.
After word got out, they split from their partners and ended up marrying each other in 2011.
'It was so public,' Glanville said of their affair in an op-ed to The Sun. 'Everyone felt sorry for me and wanted to hug me. But I wanted to punch everyone in the face. I couldn't turn on the TV without seeing something about them.'
'LeAnn had taken over my life and I didn't have a voice anymore,' she continued. 'I did not want my kids around her. She'd got my husband and she was not getting my children.'
Ariana Grande and her boyfriend Ethan Slater met while working on Wicked together, which began filming in December 2022. At the time, both Grande and Slater were married.
According to TMZ, Grande separated from her husband, Dalton Gomez, in January 2023. She then filed on Sept. 18, 2023.
Slater, on the other hand, filed for divorce from his wife, Lilly Jay, on July 26, 2023. The two share a son, born in August 2022.
In August 2023, sources told the Daily Mail that Slater and Grande were seen packing on the PDA as early as March. 'They were seen making out at a pub in Hampstead, and they were all over each other at Michelle Yeoh's Oscar party [in March],' the source said.
'They were sloppy on set,' the insider added. 'They were seen being all over each other while he was still supposedly happily married to Lilly.'
'[Ariana's] the story, really. Not a girl's girl,' Slater's ex-wife Jay told Page Six on July 27, 2023. 'My family is just collateral damage.'
When Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys reconnected, Beatz was married to singer Mashonda, whom he quickly split from in 2008. He and Keys married in 2010.
While the details are hazy, Mashonda publicly accused Keys of 'destroying a family' in a 2009 Twitter post.
'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,' she wrote.
Beatz and Keys welcomed their first son, Egypt, in 2010, and their second, Genesis, in 2014.
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt met in the summer of 2004 on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the spy thriller on which they've since admitted they both fell in love — if not quite admitting to an affair. At the time, Pitt was famously married to Jennifer Aniston, who went on to file for divorce from Pitt in March 2005.
Just four months later, Pitt and Jolie were granted a spread in W magazine showing off their 'domestic bliss,' with photos taken in March.
Jolie had this to say about how they fell in love in 2006. 'Because of the film, we ended up being brought together to do all these crazy things, and I think we found this strange friendship and partnership that kind of just suddenly happened,' she told Vogue. 'I think a few months in I realized, 'God, I can't wait to get to work.' … Anything we had to do with each other, we just found a lot of joy in it together and a lot of real teamwork. We just became kind of a pair.'
Pitt and Jolie, who share six kids together, married in 2014. Two years later, Jolie filed for a divorce. The settlement was finalized in December 2024.
One of the most publicized affairs in royal family history involved King Charles, Queen Camilla, and the late Princess Diana. Per reports, Charles was unfaithful throughout their marriage, which started in 1981.
In her iconic Panorama interview with journalist Martin Bashir in 1995, Diana confirmed their affair.
'What effect did [their affair] have on you?' Bashir asked the late Princess of Wales. 'Pretty devastating,' she replied. 'Rampant bulimia, if you can have rampant bulimia, and just a feeling of being no good at anything and being useless and hopeless and failed in every direction.'
'And with a husband who was having a relationship with somebody else?' Bashir added. 'With a husband who loved someone else, yes,' she replied. 'You really thought that?' Bashir asked. 'I didn't think that,' the royal stated. 'I knew it.'
Later on, Bashir asked if Queen Camilla's affair with her ex-husband was the reason for their split. 'Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded,' she famously replied.
Charles and Diana, who had been separated since 1992, divorced in 1996. Charles and Camilla went on to marry in 2005, eight years after Diana's tragic passing.
Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott were both married when they met in 2005. McDermott was married to Mary Jo Eustace and Spelling was married to Charlie Shanian.
In her memoir sTORI Telling, the Beverly Hills 90210 star remembered their first meeting.
'It was love at first sight. I fell so hard … Then I noticed he had a wedding ring. And — oh, yeah — I had a husband too,' Spelling wrote, per Us Weekly, before revealing that they spent the night together at a hotel. 'The following day, when I woke up next to Dean, I had no regrets. Something was really wrong with my marriage. Not only because I slept with this guy — though that certainly wasn't a positive sign — but because I didn't regret it.'
Spelling and McDermott married a year later 2006 and welcomed five kids throughout their marriage.
McDermott announced their separation in June 2023 and Spelling filed for divorce in March 2024.
Angelina Jolie's relationship with Billy Bob Thornton also began with infidelity. When the two met on the set of the 1999 dramedy Pushing Tin, Thornton was engaged to actress Laura Dern.
But, despite their relationship, Thornton began a relationship with Jolie and the two eloped in Vegas in May 2000.
'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,' Dern told ABC.
'It's like a sudden death. For no one has there been any closure or clarity,' she said.
Jolie and Thornton were together for two years until Jolie filed for divorce in 2002. They adopted son Maddox that same year. Jolie was granted full custody after their split.
While they've never confirmed it, the timeline of Morena Baccarin and Ben McKenzie's relationship certainly suggests some overlap.
Their relationship went public in Baccarin's divorce proceedings with her ex Austin Chick when she revealed she was pregnant with a baby with McKenzie. 'I am planning to re-marry,' she wrote in the court documents. 'Also, I am three-and-a-half months pregnant.'
Baccarin and McKenzie secretly wed in June 2017. They share two sons named Frances and Arthur. Baccarin also shares her first son, Julius, with Chick.
Ariana Grande was also accused of stepping on toes before starting her relationship with Big Sean.
At the time they met in 2014, Big Sean was engaged to the late Naya Rivera.
In her 2016 memoir, Sorry Not Sorry: Dreams, Mistakes, and Growing Up, the Glee alum accused Grande of hitting on her fiancé.
'On the one day that he was back in LA, he said he didn't want to see me. But since she had a key, she let herself into his house,' Rivera wrote, per Page Six. 'I walk in, go downstairs, and guess what little girl is sitting cross-legged on the couch listening to music? … It rhymes with 'Smariana Schmande.''
Grande and the rapper were together for eight months before calling it quits on April 2015.