50+ Celebrity Couples You Definitely Forgot Were Ever Married

When you hear the news of a star's second marriage (or even third), it's common to not have a clue who their first love was back in the day. To save yourself the research, take a look at this unexpected list of all the celebrity couples you never knew tied the knot.

The Dawson's Creek alum has always tried to keep her relationships quiet, as evidenced by the secret wedding to indie musician Elverum in July 2008. Even their split was kept on the down low, with news spreading in April 2019 that they ended their marriage earlier in the year. Michelle has since married and welcomed her first child with director Thomas Kail. They worked together on FX's Fosse/Verdon.

Sometimes couples never make it out of the honeymoon phase. Murphy married film producer/record executive Tracey Edmonds in a New Year's Day ceremony in Bora Bora at the start of 2008. Things allegedly fell apart within days (before they even left the island) and they ended the marriage two weeks later. The comedian is now engaged to Australian model Paige Butcher.

Former SNL cast member Chris Kattan married model Sunshine Tutt in June 2008 after proposing on Christmas Eve 2006. The relationship ended eight weeks after the wedding, citing "irreconcilable differences" as the reason for the break-up.

The Kill Bill badass married Gary, who is 12 years her senior, back in 1990. They divorced two years later, and Gary is now on wife number five, Gisele Schmidt. Uma wed Ethan Hawke in 1998, but they split in 2005.

For a very brief time, Bradley was married to Crash actress Jennifer. They tied the knot in late December 2006 but called it quits just four months later. “It was just something that happened,” Bradley told Howard Stern (via Us Weekly) in 2011. “The good thing is, we both realized it….Sometimes you just realize it.”

Helen, who you should never forget starred in Twister, wed the controversial Simpsons voice actor in 1999 after dating for five years. They split in 2000 following 17 months of marriage. “Getting over someone is a grieving process,” Hank told Elle in 2012. “You mourn the loss of the relationship, and that’s only expedited by ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ But when you walk outside and see them on a billboard or on TV or on the cover of a magazine, it reopens the wound. It’s a high-class problem, but it’s real.”

The action star said “I do” to the Oscar-winning actress back in 1995, following a strange courtship that supposedly included a proposal from Nicolas the same day they met. After five years, they announced their separation, and the divorce was finalized in 2001.

Not long after the ink on his divorce papers from Patricia had dried, Nicolas wed Elvis Presley’s daughter, Lisa Marie, who had previously been married to Michael Jackson. Nicolas filed for divorce in 2002 after three months of marriage. “I’m sad about this, but we shouldn’t have been married in the first place,” Lisa Marie said in a statement at the time.

The supermodel and the tennis legend married in 1997, but after two years, they “Suddenly Split,” as featured on the cover of People. In her 2014 memoir, Brooke detailed the time Andre revealed he’d been addicted to crystal meth during the first part of their relationship: “I was the one who had supported him unconditionally when he told me that he was basically bald and had been wearing hairpieces most of his adult life,” she wrote. “Why should this have been any different?”

Angelina’s marriage to Brad Pitt was well-documented, but it’s often forgotten that her first husband was Jonny, who currently stars as Sherlock Holmes on the CBS procedural Elementary. After appearing in the 1995 movie Hackers together, they got hitched in 1996 with Angelina wearing black rubber pants and a white shirt with Jonny’s name written in her own blood on the back. “It’s your husband,” she explained to the New York Times that year. “You’re about to marry him. You can sacrifice a little to make it really special.” They divorced in 2000, but in May 2014, Angelina called him “still a great friend.”

Long before Jennifer and Ben Affleck’s #Nannygate drama, Jennifer was married to Scandal hunk Scott. They met on the set of Felicity and wed in October 2000, but by March 2003, they had separated. “We didn’t have a shot,” Jennifer later told Allure. “He’s a really good guy, and we just imploded.”

Elisabeth met the SNL alum, who is 16 years her senior, in October 2008 when her Mad Men costar Jon Hamm hosted the sketch show. They married a year later but separated after just eight months. Fred later admitted to Howard Stern that he was “a terrible husband,” and Elisabeth cosigned that while talking to New York magazine in 2014. “Looking back, I feel like I was really young, and at the time, I didn’t think I was that young,” she said. “It was extremely traumatic and awful and horrible.”

The Jurassic Park daddy and the Thelma & Louise star met on the set of their movie Transylvania 6-5000 and went on to appear in two more films together: The Fly and Earth Girls Are Easy. They made things official with a Vegas wedding in 1987 but parted ways in 1990 after Geena filed for divorce, citing “irreconcilable differences.”

Mario was married to Ali “Doritos Girl” Landry for less than two weeks in 2004. They had the marriage annulled, and in 2011, Mario publicly copped to having cheated on her before the wedding. “At that point,” he told Howard Stern (via Us Weekly), “I was not ready to settle down. I wasn’t man enough to know how to go about handling it.”

Only three days after finalizing her divorce from Sonny Bono in 1975, Cher tied the knot with Gregg of The Allman Brothers Band. Nine days later, Cher filed for divorce from him, reportedly because of his issues with heroin and liquor, but they reconciled and stayed together until 1977.

The Grey’s Anatomy star married her Sideways director (also known for The Descendants and Nebraska) in 2003, but they called it quits in 2005. According to People, it took them more than two years to settle their finances.

Back in 1993, Julia and country singer Lyle had a surprise wedding, with Lyle’s manager telling the Washington Post at the time that “it happened rapidly, very rapidly.” “I feel liberated in a way,” Julia reportedly told Premiere magazine while married. “I feel like this really pleasant calm has descended upon my life.” The calm didn’t last—the couple split after 21 months together.

It’s hard to forget Kim’s splashy wedding to Kris Humphries (followed by a splashy wedding to Kanye West), but her first husband came into the picture before every Kardashian move was tracked. She and Damon, a music producer, eloped in 2000 and divorced in 2004.

We’re all still mourning the demise of Will’s marriage to Amy Poehler, but the Parks & Rec star was actually his second wife. He and Adventures in Babysitting actress Penelope were married for less than a month after getting hitched in December 1994.

Before J. Lo got hot and heavy again with Ben Affleck, she was married to Marc Anthony, and before that, dancer-choreographer Cris Judd. But first came Ojani, then a model/actor, whom Jennifer wed in 1997 and divorced in 1998. In 2016, Ojani appeared on Patti Stanger’s show, Million Dollar Matchmaker.

The supermodel’s marriage to Seal didn’t work out, and neither did her nuptials with celebrity hairstylist Ric back in 1997. They split after five years, but Heidi has since called him “a good guy” and said they’re “still friends.”

Berry’s first marriage was to Major League Baseball player David Justice. The pair said “I do” at 1:30 a.m. on New Year’s Day of 1993, but they split in 1996 with Halle filing a restraining order against him. Halle has since married and divorced Eric Benét and Olivier Martinez.

Wedding bells rang for the actor and the model in 1991, but by 1995, they were officially in splitsville. Cindy opened up about their dynamic in 2014 on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast: “I think part of the problem in our relationship was that we were a lot of other things, but I don’t know if we were ever friends—like peers—because I was young and he was Richard Gere.”

The Big Little Lies star married the Grammy-winning musician in 2005 in a small ceremony at their L.A. home after already having two kids together. In 2010, Ben filed for divorce, but they appeared to reconcile until 2012, when Laura was the one who filed. The second time stuck, as they were officially divorced in 2013. “It just is what it is,” Laura told The Telegraph in 2014. “Sadly, half of marriages end in divorce….There’s no shame around it—unless you want to project that onto yourself—but certainly, there’s no longer cultural shame. Everyone is walking through it.”

The One Tree Hill costars tied the knot in a Santa Monica ceremony with handwritten vows in April 2005. Only five months later, they announced their separation. In a 2017 essay for Cosmo, Sophia wrote that the “trauma of it was amplified by how public it became, which was incredibly foreign and bizarre to a girl who’d been just another college kid 24 months before her life blew up.”

Will and Sheree were married from 1992 to 1995, and they share a son, Trey. Will, of course, went on to marry Jada Pinkett Smith, while Sheree has since married and divorced San Diego Charger Terrell Fletcher.

Nicky and the money manager wed in a Las Vegas ceremony at 2:30 a.m. one August night in 2004. “They were planning on getting married this fall, but while in Las Vegas, they felt there’d be less attention if they did it there,” Nicky’s spokesperson told People. “They also felt it would be more intimate. And it was. This was not a spontaneous decision. Todd had actually proposed several weeks earlier.” Nevertheless, they annulled the marriage three months later.

Drew wed the comedian in 2000, and they appeared in both Charlie’s Angels and Freddy Got Fingered together. After just a few months, Tom filed for divorce, citing “irreconcilable differences.” “It was just a very short period of time that I had a brief marriage,” Tom later said on Oprah: Where Are They Now?: “I don’t really tend to talk about it that much comfortably [or] publicly. All of that was part of that sort of crazy, whirlwind of a time.”

But before Drew and Tom got together, she was married to bar owner Jeremy. He was her first husband, and they got spontaneously married one night in 1994 after six weeks of dating, when she was 19 and he was 31. Drew has said of the relationship, “I realized my mistake on the day I married him,” and she filed for divorce less than two months later.

Tom’s marriages to Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes provided plenty of tabloid fodder, but before any of that, the action star was married to Lost in Space actress Mimi Rogers. They wed in a secret ceremony in 1987 and announced their intent to divorce in 1990. It’s been reported that Mimi is the one who introduced Tom to Scientology.

Pre–Desperate Housewives, Eva walked down the aisle with soap star Tyler in 2002, but they went their separate ways in 2004. Since then, Eva married and divorced basketball player Tony Parker and is now wed to José Antonio Bastón, president of a Latin America media company.

Zooey and the Death Cab for Cutie frontman got married in September 2009 after being introduced by their mutual music manager. “I’d seen her movies and obviously, I thought she was very beautiful,” Ben told New York magazine. “I was just awestruck that she was even talking to me.” Alas, it didn’t last. The couple announced their separation in November 2011.

The Dirty Dancing star married the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. actor in a July 2001 ceremony on Martha’s Vineyard with a beach theme and a New England clambake menu. Throughout their nearly 20 years of marriage (they divorced in 2020)—they’ve never done that lift from Jennifer’s iconic movie. “I will never try it,” Clark told Today at the time. “That was one of our wedding vows.”

Baywatch babe Pam and Kid Rock’s marriage is perhaps most notable for their now-famous wedding, which took place on a party yacht in St. Tropez. The marriage lasted from July 2006 to November 2007, and Pamela says she never spoke to him again after their divorce.

It sounds more like a Hollywood movie than a real-life situation: A starlet marries a director, and after he directs her in a movie all about a couple’s relationship starting to decline, the IRL couple’s relationship also ends. But that’s exactly what happened to Kate and director Sam, who got married in 2003 and divorced after making the film Revolutionary Road together in 2010.

The marriage of 90210 star Shannen and Ashley (son of George Hamilton) would have fit right in during 2018’s Summer of Quick Love™ (see: Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra, Hailey Baldwin and Justin Bieber, and Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson). Shannen and Ashley tied the knot after only two weeks of dating in 1994 but divorced five months later.

Another random ’90s celeb marriage? Carmen and NBA star Dennis. The two eloped in Las Vegas in 1998 and divorced a year later. Carmen later revealed on Oprah’s Where Are They Now? series: “Our relationship was very passionate. When it was good, it was amazing, and when it was bad, it was the worst.” Dennis tried to get an annulment just nine days after the wedding, but they stuck it out for a few more months before divorcing in 1999.

The marriage between Janet and songwriter/director René might have been kept secret for its eight-year duration, but it ended with a messy public divorce battle. After the pair, who got married in 1991, separated in 1999, René sued Janet for $10 million. He claimed their marriage was manipulative and one-sided and that she had used his mental disorder to get him to sign an unfair prenup. However, Janet said their marriage ended because of René’s addiction to prescription drugs. For what it’s worth, René won the case.

Years before Brangelina, Angelina was married to Billy Bob from 2000 to 2002. They may have worn necklaces containing each other’s blood, but Billy Bob says the marriage “wasn’t as crazy as people wrote about.”

Renée and Kenny’s marriage lasted only four brief months in 2005, but the couple raised eyebrows when Renée cited “fraud” as the reason for their separation. Later, Renée clarified that her use of the word “fraud” was “simply legal language and not a reflection of Kenny’s character.”

In 2002, Kim and her then-husband Mark cowrote a book about sex titled Satisfaction: The Art of the Female Orgasm. Despite their shared passion project, the actress and the audio designer/jazz bassist ended their six-year marriage in 2004, partially because of Kim’s demanding Sex and the City work schedule. “It cost me my marriage, because I was never home,” she told News.com.au of the show. “I was never there, and my husband got lonely and upset and competitive, and it was really difficult, it was really hard.”

While we may think of George as being the consummate bachelor before he wed Amal Alamuddin in 2014, he was actually married once before. George tied the knot with actress Talia in 1989, and their marriage lasted four years. A couple years after their divorce, George told Barbara Walters in 1995, “I won’t get married again because I wasn’t very good at it,” but we all know that didn’t end up being true.

Big Bang Theory star Kaley married tennis pro Ryan in 2013 after only three months of dating. The marriage lasted 21 months, and it sounds like it didn’t end on the best of terms. Kaley opened up about the marriage to Cosmopolitan, saying, “I married someone the first time who completely changed. The person I ended up with was not the person I originally met. And that wasn’t my fault—that was his.”

Before The Hills star and the professional BMX biker’s Hawaii wedding in November 2016, they welcomed a daughter named Kirra. But after less than a year of marriage, Audrina filed for a divorce and a temporary restraining order from Corey, citing an alleged violent outburst in the court documents.

Thanks to the TV show Britney and Kevin: Chaotic, we all know Britney was married to Kevin Federline. However, before that, Britney married childhood friend Jason in Las Vegas in 2004—and yes, it was at the Little White Wedding Chapel. Two days later, she filed for an annulment.

Back in 2001, when Colin was 25, he wed English actress Amelia, then 19. They separated after six months (and Amelia went on to marry Jamie Dornan), but Amelia claims the marriage was never legal. She told The Sun, “We had a ceremony on a beach in Tahiti that was by no means legal and we knew it wasn’t....It was just a thing we did on holiday.”

Jim and actress Lauren met when Lauren auditioned for a role in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Even though she didn’t get the part, she did catch Jim’s eye. The two married in a mountaintop ceremony in 1996 and got divorced just nine months later. Lauren has since revealed that the media attention on their separation was difficult for her.

Katy may have just gotten engaged to Orlando Bloom, but, uh, remember when she was married to Russell? The pop star and the British actor said “I do” in a lavish Indian wedding in 2010, then separated only 14 months later.

“I feel like we just rushed into marriage because we were so deeply in love, and we kind of had a rough patch in our marriage,” Amber said on SiriusXM’s B Real With Bethenny (via Us Weekly) of her 14-month marriage to Wiz Khalifa. The two got married in 2013 after two years of dating and had a son together. Amber cited irreconcilable differences in their divorce papers, but the two remain close friends. “It’s so crazy that we are literally the best of friends. We hang out all the time,” she shared.

While Carey and Mumford and Sons frontman Marcus are still married, they’re a fiercely private couple, which explains why you might not know they’re together. The couple wed in 2012 after less than a year of dating and now lives in England with their two children.

For those of you who don’t know, before Paula Abdul’s name was synonymous with American Idol, she was a big pop star in the ’80s and ’90s and she was married to another ’80s star, Brat Pack member Emilio. (Emilio is also Martin Sheen’s oldest son and Demi Moore’s former fiancé, so there’s that.) The couple got married in Santa Monica in 1992 but divorced two years later, reportedly because Paula wanted kids and Emilio (who already had two) didn’t. Paula told People, “It was very hard for him to admit that he couldn’t handle having kids again. It was heartbreaking for us both.”

Emmy and Justin were married for nearly two years, from 2008 to 2010. Emmy is now married to TV writer and director Sam Esmail, but in 2012, she opened up about her divorce from Justin to InStyle, saying, “Everyone messes up in relationships and has peaks and valleys in their personal lives. When I realized it wasn’t the end of the world and I would keep on standing, I knew it was going to be okay.”