From unlikely pairings to blasts from the past, here are a few lovebirds you forgot dated. Photos / Getty Images
From unlikely pairings to blasts from the past, here are a few lovebirds you forgot dated. Photos / Getty Images
With Auckland being smaller than one’s patience in rush hour traffic, we’re used to hearing of unlikely pairings that cross between various group chats, friend groups and regions.
However, what might have your mouth aghast and your brain a bit muddled is the amount of big-name celebrities with little-known trysts that failed to make it the newspapers - or did and you can’t recall.
It’s very rare that the pomp and circumstance of Tinseltown escape our weary eye, but there are a few who fly under the radar and keep their sex lives on the down-low - much to our dismay.
From casual to committed, lovebirds to liaisons - and the difference between one-and-only’s and one-night-only’s, here’s a list of A-listers who shared a bed at some point or other - and whose bed they’re sleeping in now.
Penelope Cruz & Tom Cruise during Minority Report New York City Premiere at Ziegfeld Theater. Photo / Getty Images
Both easy on the eyes and an easy name-change at the Internal Affairs office, it would’ve been a dream if this couple had made it to the altar, if for no other reason than their homophonic names.
The pair met on the set of Vanilla Sky while Cruise was married to Nicole Kidman. However, they only took their relationship public in August 2001 when they attended the premiere of Corelli’s Mandolin.
While they called things off in 2004, Cruz was treated like a princess by the Top Gun actor, who liked to surprise his partner often.
“She’ll come home, and I’ll have her favourite kind of food made, have a bath drawn”, he told Marie Claire in 2003. “I like doing stuff like that. She likes my food, so I cook for her. It’s always the little things I like in a relationship.”
Mila Kunis and Macaulay Culkin. Photo / Getty Images
Child stars turned sweethearts Mila Kunis and Macaulay Culkin dated between 2002 and 2011 - way before the That 70s Show actress tied the knot with heartthrob Ashton Kutcher. First getting together when Kunis was 18 years old and the Home Alone star was 21 years old, the pair dated for eight years before a messy breakup which Kunis, to this day, still feels bad about.
“I f***ed up,” the actress told Dax Shepard on his podcast Armchair Expert.
“Like, I was an a**hole in my 20s, and I’ll be the first to admit it. And that’s kind of something that took me a long time to come out and say yeah, you know what? I was a d*** and I accept it and I own it now, and it’s f***ed up what I did and it’s f***ed up how I did it.”
We love a reformed celebrity - just as much as we love a TV couple turned happy family. Culkin out, Kutcher in.
Alanis Morrissette and Ryan Reynolds
Alanis Morissette and Ryan Reynolds attend The 2003 MTV Movie Awards in 2003. Photo / Getty Images
Like any cool rom-com flick featuring Ryan Reynolds, he and Alanis Morrissette met at a party. What is slightly less relatable is the fact that the party was thrown by none other than 50 First Dates star Drew Barrymore. Playing cupid to the Ironic singer and The Proposal actor, Barrymore’s party was the catalyst to a four-year relationship and three-year engagement.
However, in 2004, the pair split somewhat quietly (at least in celebrity terms) and the star-crossed set-up fell apart at the seams. On the upside, Reynolds ended up with now-wife Blake Lively - in a relationship which is often referenced as the poster child for couple goals - and Morrissette ended up with an award-winning breakup album Flavors of Entanglement inspired by her former beau. Win-win.
Ryan Gosling and Sandra Bullock
Actor Ryan Gosling and actress Sandra Bullock attend the Screening of Showtime's Original Movie 'The Believer' on September 6, 2001. Photo / Getty Images
Age was just a number for Ryan Gosling and Sandra Bullock when they reportedly embarked on a year-long relationship with a 16-year age gap.
The pair met while working on the film Murder by Numbers and left a few hints here and there about their under-wraps dalliance, but never publicly confirmed their relationship at the time.While a brief flirtation, Gosling still counts Bullock as one of the best girlfriends he ever had.
“I had two of the greatest girlfriends of all time,” Gosling shared in an interview with The Times back in 2011, referring to Bullock and Rachel McAdams. “I haven’t met anybody who could top them” - and then, of course, along came now-wife Eva Mendes and the rest is history.
The short-term fizzle seemed to be a nod to Gosling and Bullock’s first movie together - their ages differed drastically, the relationship perished, and the rest is cinematic history.
Tyra Banks and Drake
Tyra Banks and Drake attend The Flawsome Ball for The Tyra Banks TZONE at The Lower Eastside Girls Club at Capitale on October 18, 2012. Photo / Getty Images
Speaking of one-time trysts, you’d be lying if you said your ears didn’t perk up at the sound of a Tyra Banks and Drake coupling.
The One Dance rapper revealed while on The Ellen DeGeneres show that he and the supermodel went on a date together - but only once.
“It was just one date,” he said. “We went to Disneyland in disguise actually, which was really fun. I don’t even know if it was like a date. It was like a get-together. We’re still really close.”
Whether it be their underlying incompatibility or star-crossed destiny on account of their unfortunate couple name, the pair pulled the brake on their relationship quicker than a Toosie Slide.
Sarah Jessica Parker and Robert Downey Jr.
Sarah Jessica Parker & Robert Downey Jr during 1988 Young Artists Unite in Los Angeles, California, United States.Photo / Getty Images
It’s true, SJP and RDJ were a 90s heartthrob couple back in the day. The pair met while filming 1984′s Firstborn in LA and dated for seven years before - in typical rock ‘n roll fashion - drugs and alcohol got in the way.
“I liked to drink, and I had a drug problem, and that didn’t jibe with Sarah Jessica, because it is the furthest thing from what she is”, Downey Jr. told Parade in 2008. “She tried to help me. She was so miffed when I didn’t get my act together.”
Parker later opened up about her time with Downey Jr., revealing that she was left feeling “angry and embarrassed” after the relationship ended. “People around him would be dismissive of me, but I had given him stability and tried to create a steady heartbeat that allowed him to show up on time,” she told the New Yorker. “That made me angry and embarrassed me.”
While not the healthiest of relationships, the pair both wed and went their separate ways - and seem to have both happily moved on from the tumultuous affair.
Jamie Dornan and Keira Knightly
Keira Knightley with her Boyfriend Jamie Dornan during "King Arthur" New York Premiere. Photo / Getty Images
Blimey - these British bombshells were beaus back in the early noughties.
Before Dornan had nabbed Mr Grey and just after Knightley became a household name for her debut role in Pirates of the Caribbean, the pair got together and got along as well as bangers and mash on a Friday night pub crawl. Alas, two years later, their relationship went pear-shaped and one couldn’t help but wonder if Dornan pulled an Irish goodbye or was caught acting the maggot.
The 50 Shades of Grey actor cleared the air a few years later in a chinwag with Mail On Sunday. He had felt “a bit second-rate” at the time compared to his other half who was gracing multiple flicks on the big screen, which put a strain on their relationship and caused quite the holy show.
You can only imagine the sheer sexual chemistry this couple must’ve had to elicit a, “she’s really something else” from notoriously straight-faced, action star Liam Neeson.
Dating from 1980 to 1985, Helen Mirren and the Taken actor still gush about each other - even to this day. Neeson admitted that he was “smitten” right off the bat with Mirren when the two met on the set of their 1981 film Excalibur.
“I remember being on the set and standing with Ciarán Hinds as Helen walked towards us dressed in her full Morgana Le Fey costume and we both went, ‘Oh f***,’ " he said on The Graham Norton Show in 2018.
In 2022, Mirren told AARP The Magazine, “I love him deeply to this day. He’s such an amazing guy.”
Oh, to have been a fly on the wall.
Megan Watts is a Lifestyle and Entertainment digital producer for the New Zealand Herald whose passions include honest journalism, TikTok beauty hacks and random celebrity facts.
