20 Celeb Couples Who Split Up (& Still Had To Work Together)
Everyone can agree that relationships are difficult. Regardless of whether a couple lives together or not, or if they have been together for 10 years or 11 months, maintaining a relationship can be a hard thing to do.
And it's especially tough when one half of the couple is a public figure and they have a camera or a paparazzi behind them, following their steps pretty much all the time.
So, what could possibly be worse than a break-up? Well, what about being involved in a break-up and having to still work together? Yikes! In all honesty, that does sound really bad, especially when the dumpee just wants to disappear from earth or cry their heart out while watching Titanic for the millionth time!
But just like This is Insider highlighted, some actors and actresses from Hollywood have managed to continue their professional and co-working relationship even if this means that they have to make personal sacrifices.
For most people, a break-up means literally just that. To have a break from a person who one partner (or both) no longer wants, needs, or desires in their life… But for some people, this is not the case. Let's have a look at those celebrity couples who broke up but still had to work together!
20 Charlize Theron And Sean Penn
According to USA Today, Theron and Penn started dating in 2013 when Theron worked on a film called The Last Face that was directed by Penn.
However, Theron and Penn shared more than 20 years of friendship before they took their relationship to the next level.
In 2014 things got more serious and Penn proposed to Theron while they were in Paris.
The couple called off their engagement in July 2015, after being 18 months together, and, even though their romantic relationship was completely over, they still had to work together to promote their film at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016.
19 Kristen Stewart And Robert Pattinson
Ten years ago, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson started an on-screen romance in the movie Twilight. It wasn't known until a couple of months after the first Twilight movie was released that Stewart and Pattinson were actually a couple off-screen as well!
Their chemistry made headlines all over the world and they decided to go public with their romance in 2009, less than a year after the release of the first movie.
According to Seventeen, Stewart was later the instigator of a very public split.
Stewart and Pattinson worked together all-throughout the Twilight series. In fact, they even had to share a press-conference in November 2012, a couple of months after the split in order to promote Breaking Dawn, Part II.
18 Rachel Bilson And Adam Brody
Bilson and Brody first met when filming the popular show The O.C. and their natural chemistry was so high that these two fell in love quite soon and started dating off-screen as well.
And even though their characters ended up getting married, in real life things were very different as Bilson and Brody split in 2006, a year before the show ended in 2007.
You would love to know that there are no hard feelings between Bilson and Brody. Us Magazine reported on an interview done recently with Brody where he stated: “Bilson is one of the greats.”
17 Gwen Stefani And Tony Kanal
Who hasn't sung the song "Don't Speak!" by No Doubt and remembered an ex-partner? It is almost as if that song is the stamp for a break-up. The story behind this song is an actual break-up between Gwen Stefani and her bandmate Tony Kanal. The two started dating during the humble beginnings of No Doubt and they were very hush-hush about their relationship.
Recently, E Online published an interview with Stefani, who claims she thought she was “unlucky"in love as the singer split with her former bandmate.
No Doubt released a grand total of six studio albums and are one of the best-known bands on the globe… even though they officially disintegrated in 2012, almost 12 years after Stefani and Kanal broke up!
16 Hayden Panettiere And Milo Ventimiglia
As E Online states, Ventimiglia and Panettiere met on the set of the TV show Heroes and started dating shortly afterward. He was 29 years old and she was 18.
Even though this couple shared a 12-year age gap, the actors dated for a little over two years, attracting a lot of media attention.
Their relationship ended in 2009 and they continued working together until the finale of Heroes in 2010. In fact, Panettiere portrayed Ventimiglia's niece in the drama. Don't you think that's a little bit weird?
15 Jack White And Meg White
Are they a couple? Are they related? Are they brother and sister? Are they still making music together? These are some of the questions people have asked about this dynamic duo.
And as Diffuser.fm has stated, Jack White and Meg White first claimed they were family, as they didn't want their relationship to be in the spotlight. They instead wanted their music to be the reason why fans would support them.
What's surprising about this band is that they remained as The White Stripes for almost ten years after their official personal breakup.
14 Kaley Cuoco And Johnny Galecki
Can you imagine being part of one of the most well-known and hit TV shows of all times like The Big Bang Theory? What's more, can you imagine being one of the lead roles of the show, date your co-star and keep it all to yourself, without the world knowing?
This is exactly what Cuoco and Galecki managed to do.
According to Nicki Swift, when Cuoco and Galecki decided to talk about their off-screen relationship in 2010, it was all too late, as the pair had already been together for two years and called off their relationship on amicable terms… despite the fact that they had to marry on screen!
13 Blake Lively And Penn Badgley
Spotted! B and P dating after meeting on the set of their hit TV show Gossip Girl. This pair actually dated for three years, from 2007 to 2010, and guess what? Not even the rest of the cast members knew about it, even though it was one of the most photographed sets at the time.
As Hello Giggles reveals, Blake and Penn were so in sync that even their real-life relationship mirrored their on-screen relationship… they even broke up and remained friends just like Serena and Dan, their Gossip Girl characters, did.
12 Jennifer Lawrence And Nicholas Hoult
They had an incredible connection on screen in X-Men: First Class, so fans were overcome when the news broke out that Mystique and Beast, sorry, Lawrence and Hoult, started dating off-screen in 2010 for about four years.
And even though they broke up in 2014, they still had to work together in the third X-Men film, X-Men: Apocalypse.
According to People, Lawrence remains 'good friends' with all of her exes… primarily because she is a blunt person who is always speaking her mind, so her ex-partners know what she thinks of them!
11 Mindy Kaling And B.J. Novak
Kaling and Novak met on the set of The Office back in 2004. And just like their characters Ryan and Kelly, they have been dating on and off in real life as well. Even though it is unknown when the two of them got together, they have both stated that it was during the early years of the sitcom.
Moreover, according to Much, the pair are now writing a book together. Apparently, they have received more than $7 million between the two of them. Well, it is a good thing they have remained so close to each other then!
10 Nina Dobrev And Ian Somerhalder
Nina and Ian were an on-screen perfect vampire couple in the hit TV show The Vampire Diaries who led everyone to believe that love was truly achievable! So fans were really excited when they realized they were also a couple in real life.
They began dating in 2011 and continued to do so until 2013. However, after the split, the pair remained very good friends.
In fact, Nina has commented that she's truly happy for Ian and his wife Nikki… who happens to be Nina's friend as well!
In fact, things were so good that even though Nina had left The Vampire Diaries, she came back for the series' finale and posted a selfie with Ian and Nikki in it, as noted by Nicki Swift. Talk about a 21st-century breakup!
9 Gwyneth Paltrow And Ben Affleck
Paltrow and Affleck dated from 1997 to 2000. They became engaged and the whole world thought they would get married. They were also working together, filming Shakespeare in Love and their whole universe was simply, perfect. But was it really?
The couple broke up before finishing filming Shakespeare in Love and they were seen ignoring each other constantly, especially during the red carpet events. According to People, Paltrow felt Affleck “was a lesson she tried to learn and something she was trying to heal.”
Paltrow has married, divorced and remarried again, while Affleck also got married and divorced.
8 Jessica Szohr And Ed Westwick
Spotted! Another couple running around in New York City. Were Chuck and Vanessa from Gossip Girl an item? Really? The answer is yes.
They were an item for a couple of years, and in 2009 Jessica finally came out and told the truth!
However, their relationship didn't last too long, as Page Six reveals: rumor has it that Jessica started flirting a little bit too much with one of Ed's best friends while he was away filming in Europe.
And even though they broke up their relationship, they had to remain co-workers until Jessica left the show in 2011.
7 Drew Barrymore And Justin Long
In 2008, Drew and Justin started filming He's Not That Into You, a movie that changed their lives forever. The two of them started dating and fell in love immediately, and even though they were a great couple together, their relationship was always on and off.
As the Daily Mail reports, after their official break up in 2008, Barrymore and Long started working together again in a movie called Going the Distance. The couple decided to rekindle their romance and thus began dating once again. And it has been like this for these two… they were spotted together last September, making fans go wild with the possibility of these two reuniting.
6 Michael C. Hall And Jennifer Carpenter
Undoubtedly, Dexter has been one of the most interesting TV programs ever produced over the last couple of years. Dexter lead actor Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter fell in love quickly on set and decided to get married in 2008.
In 2011 the couple decided to get a divorce, and even though some photographs of the two have appeared where they look like they are still in love, both individuals have thoroughly denied the rumors of a possible reunion between them.
According to Hello Magazine, things weren't as they seemed on set. Of course, they were 'friendly' with each other because they didn't see each other much on set after their breakup.
5 Diane Keaton And Al Pacino
If Hollywood had a Royal Family, then Al Pacino and Diane Keaton would have definitely been the main members of it. This pair met in a Manhattan bar after they were both cast for a role in The Godfather, one of the most iconic films ever made. They soon started dating and broke up a couple of times in between the filming of the movie.
However, as the Observer has revealed, Keaton wrote a series of essays where she stated that neither Pacino nor herself were prepared for the success that The Godfather brought to their lives. And as she has said, she simply wasn't prepared for Al.
4 Katie Holmes And Joshua Jackson
Oh, to be loved and to love when you are 18! It almost feels as if this show was produced last year and we are still rooting for Joey and Pacey! But even though more than 15 years have passed since Dawson's Creek ended, Holmes and Jackson remain one of television's all-time favorite couples!
And there are many reasons why, as their chemistry can be felt everywhere!
As Mashable reveals, Holmes and Jackson have such strong chemistry that when the pair decided to reunite alongside the rest of the cast of Dawson's Creek for a magazine shoot, sparks were lit as well!
3 Cameron Diaz And Justin Timberlake
Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake started dating right after Timberlake broke up with Britney Spears, but before he got together with Jessica Biel, his current wife. Diaz and Timberlake were often seen around L.A, attending trendy restaurants and living the life… up until 2007 when they decided to call it quits.
Apparently, one of the reasons they broke up was because Justin was seen chatting and flirting with Jessica Biel at the 2007 Golden Globes. According to Glamour Magazine the pair remained good friends though, and they even worked together a couple of years later in a movie called Bad Teacher, where Diaz played the role of a substitute teacher who was really into Timberlake… does it sound familiar?
2 Sophia Bush And Chad Michael Murray
If you would like to talk about a strange relationship, then look no further than this. Sophia and Chad met in 2003 while filming One Tree Hill and fell in love soon thereafter. In fact, they got married after a year or so of dating. So, what happened? Six months after their wedding ceremony, Sophia asked for a divorce!
Not only it was a messy divorce, with claims that the marriage was a sham as the Mirror states, but this couple remained co-workers for the next three years of their lives.
And just like them, their on-screen characters didn't end up together either… it was probably the best thing to do, in all honesty.
1 Jennifer Lopez And Marc Anthony
“Y ahora quien, si no soy yo?” can be translated to “And who will now, if it's not me?” Well, it wasn't you Marc Anthony, it wasn't you. Perhaps one of the most famous couples on earth, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony started dating in 2004 and married shortly afterward.
They made movies together, recorded an album together, and they performed together at the Grammy Awards, which was considered one of the greatest performances of all time. In 2008, they welcomed their twins, and in 2011 the couple announced they were getting a divorce.
Last year, it was revealed by Billboard that Anthony and Lopez had a stronger relationship than ever before thanks to the album they had recorded in 2016, five years after they split, citing “music has helped our relationship.”