Although infidelity can happen in any relationship, there’s one big difference when it comes to affairs in Hollywood — everyone hears about them. Although let’s be honest, so much of the rumored infidelity that makes headlines is so speculative that it’s hard to tell what really happened and what is just part of the rumor mill. But every now and then, a celebrity does something novel: They fess up.

It’s easy to understand why some stars may not volunteer a public admission of guilt. There’s a stigma surrounding infidelity that can be difficult to shake. It’s the same for the rest of us, right? And, true, being unfaithful to someone you love is a terrible thing to do. But (and this is important) it doesn’t necessarily mean that the person who was unfaithful is a terrible person.

In fact, there’s a lot to be said for someone who comes clean about their misgivings, takes responsibility and does what they can to work through their issues. While they clearly had issues with honesty in their past behavior, admitting they cheated is actually a step in the right direction.

Granted, some celebrities are probably put up to confessing by their PR people. For others, though — Jay-Z springs to mind — fessing up feels like a sign of genuine remorse and change. So, in the spirit of giving these stars the benefit of the doubt, let’s take a look at some Hollywood A-listers who admitted to stepping out on their significant others.

A version of this story was originally published May 2020.

After being accused of cheating on his fiancée Becky Q, Sebastian Lletget released a statement on Instagram, claiming, for one thing, “Over the last several weeks, during a moment I regret deeply, a 10 minute lapse in judgment resulted in an extortion plot. Since this person did not get what they wanted it has now become a public social media spectacle filled with more lies than any truth and false posts aimed at the love of my life, the one person who I should never take for granted or put at risk.”

The two have been dating since 2016, and got engaged in Dec 9, 2022 before this came to be.

After rumors hit the headlines that Vanderpump Rules stars Ariana Madix and Tom Sandoval had broken up due to Sandoval’s cheating (with their fellow costar Raquel Leviss), Sandoval confirmed the news and admitted to the allegations on Instagram on March 8. “I want to first and foremost apologize to everyone I’ve hurt through this process,” Sandoval wrote in the statement. “Most of all, I want to apologize to Ariana. I made mistakes, I was selfish, and made reckless decisions that hurt somebody I love. No one deserves to feel that pain so traumatically and publicly.”

“My biggest regret is that I dishonored Ariana,” he continued. “I never meant to disappoint so many people, including our loving families and friends. My love for Ariana was stronger than any camera could have ever captured. Some of our best times together were never filmed. The same goes for some of our biggest struggles. I wish things happened in a different order and our relationship was not severely tarnished, and that it ended with the same respect with for her that it began with. I owed Ariana better.” Sandoval and Madix had been together since 2014.

In a conversation during his podcast, Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard, Dax Shepard to cheating on relationships in the past (this, of course, doesn’t include his longtime wife Kristen Bell). “I have a horrendous history of cheating, f**king deplorable,” he admitted, adding that this all happened when he was much younger. “Any attention from a girl, I had to have it at all costs.”

Don’t worry, this was way before Chrissy Teigen joined the picture! Talking to Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard in 2020, John Legend talked about being a serial cheat once he started reaching success. “I just didn’t get a lot of girls when I was younger,” he said. “When I started to get that attention, I loved it. I just ate it up.”

He continued, “I escaped ‘technically cheating’ by keeping my relationship ill-defined, but it was really cheating. I definitely was dishonest and selfish and just enjoyed this new attention I was getting.” At we know he’s a changed man now!

Ned Fulmer, a now ex-member of the YouTube group Try Guys, has been kicked to the curb by his wife, Ariel Fulmer, and fellow group members after being accused of cheating.

Fulmer was filmed kissing Try Guys producer, Alex Herring, at a New York club. The group not only kicked him out of their project, but is allegedly scrubbing all video content featuring Fulmer from their channel.

Fulmer released a statement that reads, “Family should have always been my priority, but I lost focus and had a consensual workplace relationship. I’m sorry for any pain that my actions may have caused to the guys and the fans but most of all to Ariel. The only thing that matters right now is my marriage and my children, and that’s where I am going to focus my attention.”

Known to be a flirt and for flaunting his sex appeal (it’s giving narcissist), Adam Levine was accused of cheating on his wife of 8 years, Behati Prinsloo, with a 23-year-old Instagram model.

Sumner Stroh made a TikTok video alleging that she had a year-long affair with the Maroon 5 frontman, and she pulled up with several receipts. Levine released a statement on his Instagram Story following Stroh’s viral allegations, which read:

“I used poor judgment in speaking with anyone other than my wife in ANY kind of flirtatious manner. I did not have an affair, nevertheless, I crossed the line during a regrettable period of my life. In certain instances it became inappropriate.”

While Levine maintains he didn’t cheat on Prinsloo with Stroh, five other women have come forward with claims of inappropriate behavior from the tattooed father of two.

Khloé Kardashian and Tristan Thompson’s on-again, off-again relationship was well-documented by the press. Allegations that Thompson cheated on Kardashian (more than once, by the way) surfaced at times when it became pretty clear the two had gone their separate ways.

Thompson reportedly cheated on Kardashian when she was pregnant with the couple’s daughter, True, in April 2018. Then, there was the whole ordeal involving Jordyn Woods in 2019. More recently, just when it seemed like Kardashian and Thompson were on good terms, Thompson admitted to cheating on Kardashian with trainer Maralee Nichols — with whom he fathered a son.

Following confirmation of his paternity, Thompson wrote an apology to Kardashian, which he posted to his Instagram Story. “Khloé, you don’t deserve this,” he wrote. “You don’t deserve the heartache and humiliation I have caused you. You don’t deserve the way I have treated you over the years. My actions certainly have not lined up with the way I view you. I have the utmost respect and love for you. Regardless of what you may think. Again, I am so incredibly sorry.”

Offset was first caught cheating on Cardi B in 2018 when a sex tape of him and another woman leaked. Cardi filed for divorce, but ended up forgiving Offset.

She explained where her forgiveness came from to Vogue in 2019, sharing, “It’s real-life shit. If you love somebody and you stop being with them, and you’re depressed and social media is telling you not to talk to that person because he cheated, you’re not really happy on the inside until you have the conversation… People that be in marriages for years, when they say till death do us part, they not talking about little arguments like if you leave the fridge open. That’s including everything.”

In April 2021, Jana Kramer filed for divorce from husband of six years Mike Caussin amid reports that he had once again cheated on her. In 2016, the couple separated just before news broke that the former football player had cheated on Kramer with multiple women months after welcoming their baby daughter, but the couple worked to reconcile as Caussin checked into sex addiction rehab and they welcomed a second child, son Jace, in 2018. The following year, Kramer admitted on her podcast that Caussin had had a “relapse” and she’d found evidence of him engaging with other women.

Kramer announcied the news of their split in an emotional Instagram in spring 2021, writing: “Please know that I still believe wholeheartedly in marriage, love, and rebuilding,” she wrote. “I just can’t fight any longer. It’s time to heal.”

When Beyoncé dropped her Lemonade album and Jay-Z his 4:44, it left little doubt in fans’ minds that Jay-Z had been unfaithful to his wife. Or, in other words, that “Becky with the good hair” Beyoncé sang about was not, in fact, a fictional character. In the time since, Jay-Z has openly discussed his transgression, telling T: The New York Times Style Magazine, “You know, most people walk away, and the divorce rate is like 50 percent or something ‘cause most people can’t see themselves. The hardest thing is seeing pain on someone’s face that you caused, and then have to deal with yourself. So, you know, most people don’t want to do that. You don’t want to look inside yourself.”

However, as he told Van Jones, “For us, we chose to fight for our love, for our family. To give our kids a different outcome. To break that cycle for black men and women. We were never a celebrity couple, we were a couple who just happened to be celebrities. We are real people.”

Oof, this was a doozy. Another beloved ‘90s couple, Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid were so gosh damn wholesome that no one saw what was coming when Ryan had a high-profile affair with fellow actor Russell Crowe. She and Quaid split in 2000 but, eight years later, she told In Style that she wasn’t the only unfaithful one in their marriage.

“It was a great story, but what wasn’t in the story was the reality of my marriage for nine years,” she explained. “Dennis was not faithful to me for a long time, and that was very painful. I found out more about that once I was divorced.” Like Ryan Phillippe, Ryan felt as though Crowe caught too much of the blame for her marriage breakup. “I think he took a big hit. But Russell didn’t break up the marriage. He was definitely there at the end, but it wasn’t his fault. I was a mess. I hurt him, too, at the end. I couldn’t be in another long relationship, it wasn’t the time for that. So I got out.”

Jessica Simpson admitted to having an “emotional affair” with Johnny Knoxville during her marriage to Nick Lachey in her memoir. She wrote, “But to me, an emotional affair was worse than a physical one. It’s funny, I know, because I had placed such an emphasis on sex by not having it before marriage. After I actually had sex, I understood that the emotional part was what mattered… Johnny and I had that, which seemed far more of a betrayal to my marriage than sex.”

The couple ultimately divorced in 2006 following four years of marriage.

Oh, how our Cruel-Intentions-loving-hearts shattered when we found out Ryan Phillippe had cheated on his co-star-turned-wife Reese Witherspoon. They were, at the time, proof young love can last. Only, we now know that in their case it didn’t — she reportedly confronted him about being unfaithful after reading text messages between him and Stop Loss co-star Abbie Cornish.

Having said that, Phillippe pointed out in a 2008 interview with W Magazine that the scrutiny Cornish subsequently faced was uncalled for. “It was unfair for her to be called the names that she was, because it wasn’t about that. I don’t think an outside person can ever cause a divorce. I had difficulties in my relationship, and in my marriage, long before I ever met her,” Phillippe said.

In what may be the case of the most miserable timing for an affair to surface, Dean McDermott got caught in an extramarital romance over Christmas 2013 while promoting his gig as host of Chopped Canada. The day after Christmas, his wife-of-seven-years Tori Spelling would learn that he met then-28-year-old Emily Goodhand at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel for a two-day fling. At the time, McDermott and Spelling already had four children together.

In a candid interview with ET Canada the following year, McDermott admitted what he did was wrong — but that he was often painted in an unfair light for it. “When you’re at the checkout and you look over and you see one of these magazines and it’s like, ‘Dean McDermott’s a monster,’ I’m like, ‘No, I’m not a monster, I’m a human being and I messed up,” he said. “I messed up and I’m owning up to it and I’m getting help. But to label me a monster or evil is very hurtful.”

Sandra Bullock divorced Jesse James in 2010 after five years of marriage because he cheated on her with multiple women.

The motorcycle-riding TV personality later told the Daily Mail, “Yeah, I did cheat on my wife, yeah, I stood up and took accountability for it and apologized. And that’s end of story. The easy [put down] is like, oh well you cheated on Sandra Bullock. That’s the world’s easiest comeback. In general, both women and men cheat. It’s part of life.” Talk about a bogus take. Nobody puts Sandy in the corner!

She’s now arguably best known as the world’s most famous momager, but Kris Jenner made a headline or two back in the day for decidedly different reasons. In her 2011 memoir, she admitted that she had cheated on husband Robert Kardashian. Writing of a man she refers to as “Ryan” in the book, she confessed, “He kissed me and I kissed him back… I hadn’t been kissed like that in 10 years. It made me feel young, attractive, sexy, and alive.”

In her 2011 memoir, Jenner confessed to cheating on Kardashian as well — this time with a man who she calls “Ryan” in the book, but who has been reported to be professional soccer player Todd Waterman. “He kissed me and I kissed him back … I hadn’t been kissed like that in 10 years. It made me feel young, attractive, sexy, and alive,” she wrote, adding, “Along with these feelings came a wave of nausea. I actually wanted to throw up at the same time. Because it dawned on me that I had not felt that way with Robert for years.”

Speaking of the Kardashians, another member of the family was affected by a cheating scandal — except they were the ones being cheated on. Throughout the course of his marriage to Khloé Kardashian, Lamar Odom had several affairs. It wasn’t until a 2017 interview with Us Weekly that he fully came clean about his infidelities and how much remorse he felt over them. “If there is one thing I regret when I was married, it was having multiple affairs with different women,” he said. “That wasn’t the stand-up thing to do. I wish I could have kept my dick in my pants.”

Twihards were beside themselves in 2020 when Kristen Stewart was spotted making out with a man who was most definitely not her Twilight co-star boyfriend of three years, Robert Pattinson. As it turned out, the man Stewart had been kissing was her Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders, who was married at the time to her Snow White co-star, Liberty Ross.

Shortly after photos of the illicit pair surfaced, Stewart issued a public apology. “I’m deeply sorry for the hurt and embarrassment I’ve caused to those close to me and everyone this has affected,” she said. “This momentary indiscretion has jeopardized the most important thing in my life, the person I love and respect the most, Rob. I love him. I’m so sorry.” Although the couple did reconcile, they ultimately went their separate ways but are on friendly terms now.

While married to her manager, Nick Cokas, Katharine McPhee was photographed kissing director Michael Morris, who was also married. McPhee later told FOX News “I don’t have any regrets. All of the choices I made I learned from in a really deep way.”

In October 2017, when his wife Eniko Parrish was then-8-months pregnant, word got out that Kevin Hart had been unfaithful. At first, he posted a bombshell Instagram informing fans of an alleged extortion attempt using a “sexually provocative” video of him with another woman. However, he ultimately opened up further about the incident, apologizing to Parrish and taking full responsibility and calling it a “fucking massive mistake.”

“I’m guilty, regardless of how it happened and what was involved, the shit that I can’t talk about, I’m guilty. I’m wrong,” he said on the Power 105.1 FM show The Breakfast Club in December 2017. “It’s beyond irresponsible. There’s no way around it. That’s Kevin Hart in his dumbest moment. That’s not the finest hour of my life. With that being said, you make your bed you lay in it.”

You could practically hear the collective gasp from fans when reports surfaced in 2005 that Jude Law had been carrying on an affair behind fiancée Sienna Miller’s back — with his children’s nanny, no less. “I want to publicly apologize to Sienna and our respective families for the pain that I have caused,” he said in a public statement at the time. “There is no defense for my actions which I sincerely regret and I ask that you respect our privacy at this very difficult time.”

The golden couple stuck in out for a bit before breaking up and reconciling a few years later. Alas, they couldn’t make a go of it for good.

‘Twas the cheating scandal heard around the world! In 1995, although in a serious relationship with Elizabeth Hurley, Hugh Grant was arrested and charged with “lewd contact” after being caught in Los Angeles with a sex worker named Divine Brown. Amazingly, Hurley and Grant went on to date for several more years, and it was possibly due to the fact that he didn’t try to dodge his poor behavior.

“I was just an idiot. I didn’t try to say, ‘I’ve got this psychological problem.’ I just said, ‘I did it,’” he told Jay Leno during an appearance on The Tonight Show. “You know in life what’s a good thing to do and a bad thing to do. I did a bad thing.”

In 2019, rumors emerged alleging Justin Timberlake had cheated on his wife, Jessica Biel, and there was evidence to back up the claims. Photos surfaced of the singer and actor holding hands with Palmer co-star Alisha Wainwright, and shortly afterward, he made a public apology that read:

“A few weeks ago I displayed a strong lapse in judgment — but let me be clear — nothing happened between me and my costar. I drank way too much that night and I regret my behavior. I should have known better.

This is not the example I want to set for my son. I apologize to my amazing wife and family for putting them through such an embarrassing situation, and I am focusing on being the best husband and father I can be.”

Mario Lopez cheated on his fiance, Ali Landry, during his bachelor party in 2004. The couple was married for two weeks before Landry found out and confronted Lopez.

The Saved By the Bell alum later told the Daily Mail, “I figured at that point it was easier to ask for forgiveness. It’s my bachelor party, we were going to have a good time… I was wrong for obviously lying, and I shouldn’t have been in that position. I dealt with all this drama, and then at that point… I finally got the balls to say ‘Hey, listen I’m not ready for this, I’m sorry.'”

Not all extramarital affairs end in total disaster. Case in point? In 2009, Eddie Cibrian and LeAnn Rimes were caught on camera passionately making out while on break from filming their movie Northern Lights. Unfortunately, they were both married at the time, him to Brandi Glanville and her to Dean Sheremet.

Not surprisingly, the story blew up in headlines, and the pair has ultimately had to make peace with the fact some people will always see them as cheaters. “It happens every day to so many people,” she told People in 2010. “You had two couples whose marriages didn’t work who really stumbled upon each other and fell in love.” Of people’s negative perception of the now-married couple, she added, “Nothing I’m going to say is going to change it. I do know that, and I have accepted that.”

Following a very messy and public split in 2009, rumors swirled that Usher and then-wife Tameka Foster’s marriage had failed due to infidelity on his part. In the following months as they went through a contentious custody battle, though, Usher seemed to remain respectful and neutral toward his ex, leading fans to wonder what really happened behind closed doors. They got to find out (at least in small part) in 2012, the first time Usher publicly addressed cheating rumors.

On Oprah’s Next Chapter, Oprah asked him directly if he’d been unfaithful to Foster. “Towards the end of our marriage, I found myself lost, and I just wanted out,” he said, adding, “No. I was faithful at heart, but not faithful all the way. Even having a conversation with another woman, period, about matters of your relationship or emotions is, in my opinion, not being faithful.” He also admitted that he had sexual relationships with other women when he and Foster were separated.

Jack Nicholson and Anjelica Houston split in 1989 after Houston found out Nicholson had gotten another woman pregnant. Years later, The Shining actor spoke about his infidelity to Parade Magazine.

“I was in a wonderful relationship with Anjelica,” Nicholson said. “It was as good as it gets. I immediately told her what was up, and she made the decision for us.” He recalled, “Anjelica’s first response was, ‘You have to support this woman.’ Her second response was to come down to my job and beat the hell out of me. She really beat me up, I tell you. Anjelica can punch!”

In a rather gross take, Nicholson concluded, “I’m such a wag! I’m a scamp. I don’t deny it. I like myself… I grew up in a beauty parlor my family ran, so I’m used to getting along with ladies. I prefer their company, for the most part. I was pampered from the very beginning.”

Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman were that super-cool ‘90s couple everyone wanted to be like — until they weren’t. In 2003, around the same time Halle Berry and Eric Benet split due to Benet’s infidelity, Thurman and Hawke separated. The catalyst? He’d reportedly strayed with the nanny (and possibly also with Canadian model Jen Perzow on the set of Taking Lives?).

Years later, in 2012, he alluded to the mistakes he’d made in their marriage, telling The Guardian, “Nothing teaches you like getting leveled. And I got leveled in my early 30s. Nothing went exactly the way I thought it would. Wait a second: love isn’t real and, holy shit, I put all this energy into not making the same mistake my parents did and I just re-enacted them all! I thought I was so much smarter than everybody else. And I’m not.”

Okay, so admittedly, Crudup hasn’t really done a lot of talking about stepping out in 2003 on his then-pregnant girlfriend of eight years, Mary-Louise Parker. However, the two women involved in the situation have. In 2015, Claire Danes — the woman Crudup left Parker for — opened up to Howard Stern about the difficult predicament, saying, “I was just in love with him. And I needed to explore that and I was 24… I didn’t quite know what the consequences would be.”

And in her 2015 memoir, Dear Mr. You, Parker indirectly referenced Crudup’s betrayal. In the book, she recalls a heated conversation (obviously fueled by emotion) that she’d had with a cab driver. “‘I am alone. Look, see? I am pregnant and alone. It hurts to even breathe,’” she recounts telling the stranger. “‘ I’m trying to get through it but I’m by myself every night and every morning and no one, nothing helps.’”

Woody Allen famously and nauseatingly cheated on Mia Farrow, his wife at the time, with her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. Allen eventually went on to marry Previn and later told NPR, “The heart wants what it wants. There’s no logic to those things. You meet someone and you fall in love and that’s that.”

In 2009, Tiger Woods was a household name. A globally known golfer, he was the pinnacle of the sport. He was also married to model Elin Nordegren, and the two had two children together. What he’d soon become known for, though, was crashing his Escalade into a tree in his front yard the morning after Thanksgiving. And soon after, for being exposed as a serial cheater. He ducked under the radar for a few months before resurfacing with a live press conference in February 2010 to apologize for his behavior.

“I felt I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled. Thanks to money and fame, I didn’t have to go far to find them,” he said, revealing he’d spent 45 days in in-patient treatment. “I was unfaithful. I had affairs. I cheated. What I did is not acceptable. And I am the only person to blame.”

Sometimes, you see a scandal coming from a mile away. Others totally blindside you. Such was the case with longtime former Late Show host David Letterman who, in 2008, found himself in an uncomfortable situation — publicly airing his private matters after Robert “Joe” Halderman, CBS News producer and the boyfriend of Letterman’s longtime assistant Stephanie Birkitt, tried to extort $2 million from the TV personality.

Halderman had discovered Letterman and Birkitt were involved in an ongoing affair but, as the world would soon find out, that wasn’t Letterman’s only indiscretion. “I have had sex with women who work for me,” he confessed in a now-infamous on-air moment, apologizing to wife Regina Lasko who had been “horribly hurt by my behavior.”

When Iggy Azalea was engaged to NBA player Nick Young, a “prank war” video filmed by fellow LA Laker D’Angelo Russell surfaced in which Young admitted he had cheated on the rapper. Afterward Young claimed it was false, and Azalea believed him.

Soon after, Azalea tweeted that she had broken up with the basketball player because she caught him on a security camera bringing girls into their home. Shortly after that, it came out that Young had gotten his ex-girlfriend pregnant, and the baby was definitely conceived while he was with Azalea. Yikes.

For diehard Bones fans, David Boreanaz will always be lovable FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth. So, it was hard to wrap our heads around what he revealed to People in 2010. “I haven’t been faithful to my wife,” he confessed, saying of his then-nine-year marriage to Jaime Bergman, “Our marriage has been tainted with my infidelities. I was irresponsible.” Although the pair had been dealing with the matter privately for a year by that point, they felt compelled to come forward following an extortion attempt.

“I was associated with a woman who I was involved with and had a relationship with. She asked for money,” the Bones actor revealed, although declining to name her. “I felt as though I was being blackmailed or there was some sort of extortion,” he said, elaborating that the woman was asking for “six figures and would threaten to go to the media if we didn’t pay.”

For her part, Bergman insisted the marriage was in trouble long before any mistresses entered the picture. “As much as David should have never gone outside of the marriage, there was neglect on my part,” she said during their joint interview. “It took a crisis; it took infidelity to get us off our asses and work for what we want.”

Back in the early 2000s, Eric Benet life seemed to be going well — on the surface. He was a successful singer-songwriter, and he was married to one of Hollywood’s hottest actresses, Halle Berry. But by 2002, it all imploded when Benet was ousted for being unfaithful to Berry numerous times. After checking in to a 35-day sex-addice rehab program, he and Berry tried to course-correct their marriage but it was too late. She announced they were separating the following year.

And in a 2005 interview with People, Benet finally addressed his infidelities, insisting he didn’t go as far as people assumed. “We all know I cheated. It was out there. It’s a betrayal,” he said. “But I never did have sexual intercourse while I was with Halle. Going into rehab was presented to me by her mother that in order for the marriage to have a shot, this is what you need to do… but no, I’m not a sex addict. I wanted to save my marriage and do anything necessary to do that.”

The rest of the world wasn’t privy to the intimate details at the time but, during his tenure as governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s wife of 25 years, Maria Shriver, was holding on to a major suspicion: that he’d fathered a love child with their housekeeper Mildred. So, the minute his time in office was over, Shriver called a couples counseling session to confront her husband.

“I told the therapist, ‘It’s true,’” Schwarzenegger recounted, admitting that he immediately began begging for Shriver’s forgiveness by saying he “screwed up,” that she was the “perfect wife” and that he was still “turned on” by her. Spoiler alert? His pleas didn’t work. In May 2011, the couple split and, later that month, Schwarzenegger came clean to the world about his now-22-year-old-lookalike-illegitimate-son Joseph Baena.