Chris Klein Said He and Katie Holmes Were Like "Prom King and Queen" When They Were Together

Katie Holmes Chris Klein
Katie Holmes Chris Klein
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Who: Actress Katie Holmes, 41, and actor Chris Klein, 41

How They Met: The exact details are unclear, but both Holmes and Klein were hot young actors in the early 2000s and likely ran in similar hot young actor circles. It was only a matter of time before their hot-young-actorness collided in real life. She was the Dawson’s Creek good girl; he the American Pie heartthrob … Honestly, it would’ve been an early-aughts crime had these two not blessed the era’s red carpets with their coordinating denim and well-defined chins.

Katie Holmes and Chris Klein
Katie Holmes and Chris Klein

J. Vespa/WireImage

After about four years together, Holmes and Klein revealed they were engaged in late 2003.

Why We Loved Them: As with most of Holmes’s relationships (excluding that, uh, ONE), she and Klein were very private. A month or two ahead of their engagement a People reporter attempted to snag some details from Holmes regarding her and Klein’s living arrangements and she responded, “That’s our business. But thank you for wondering.” It’s always nice to be polite!

RELATED: TBT: Katie Holmes Blindsided Tom Cruise with Their Divorce

Years later, Klein remembered his and Holmes’s young love fondly. “I was working all the time and [Holmes] was involved in a TV show that filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina, so we’d hang on hiatuses,” he told The Daily Beast in 2012. “We were kids, man … We were all working, successful, and having fun. It was late ‘90s, young Hollywood, and we were having a good time ... not unlike all those vampires today.”

“We were like the prom king and queen,” Klein told People. “We had a similar upbringing and we were going through the same experience [in Hollywood].”

Katie Holmes and Chris Klein
Katie Holmes and Chris Klein

SGranitz/WireImage

When They Peaked: The year is 2000. You’re the star of a wildly successful teen drama. You’re wearing a muted rainbow dress on the red carpet of the MTV Movie Awards. Beside you, a teen idol; before you … BEYONCÉ .

Katie Holmes, Chris Klein, Beyonce
Katie Holmes, Chris Klein, Beyonce

Ke.Mazur/WireImage

OK, this doesn’t actually have a lot to do with Klein, but we love this moment for Holmes.

The Breakup: Holmes and Klein’s split was announced in March of 2005. Of course, it was only about two months later that Holmes’s relationship with Tom Cruise made the media rounds. Just over one year following the news of Holmes and Klein’s split, the First Daughter star and Cruise were married and had welcomed daughter Suri.

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Naturally, the timeline led many [gossip blogs] to believe Holmes had left Klein for Cruise. Klein himself cleared up the rumors, telling Access Hollywood, “People are going to write what they want to write. Her being with Tom has nothing to do with her and I discontinuing our relationship.”

Toward the beginning of the TomKat media frenzy, Holmes told W that she and Klein “care about each other and we’re still friends,” strangely punctuating the statement with “Tom [Cruise] is the most incredible man in the world.”

Klein gave more insight on the end of his and Holmes’s relationship years later, telling The Daily Beast, “Young Hollywood was ending. [Holmes’s] huge television show was ending. Life was changing and that adventure ended. It was a transitional period. So I was 25-years-old trying to find my voice, since my teenage one was played out.”

Katie Holmes and Chris Klein
Katie Holmes and Chris Klein

Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

“From my side there was a lot of denial and fear about the future,” Klein told People regarding the split. “It ended as amicably as these things can end.” He also mentioned that the breakup wasn’t publicized as soon as it happened. “We kept it to ourselves for a while,” he said. “It looked like it was Katie and Chris together and two seconds later Katie and Tom together, but that’s ridiculously compressed … Kate was incredibly respectful about the decision she was making to move on. She called and said, ‘Listen I want you to know before you see it anywhere else.’”

RELATED: TBT: Paula Abdul and Emilio Estevez's Romance Began Over the Phone

Where They Are Now:

Holmes and Cruise divorced in 2012. The following year she reportedly began dating Jamie Foxx. The ultra low-key couple quietly dated for years. They reportedly split in mid-2019.

The actress’s latest project, The Secret: Dare to Dream (based on Rhonda Byrne’s best-selling self-help book) will be available to stream on PVOD platforms July 31.

Klein wed Laina Rose Thyfault in 2015. The couple welcomed a son, Frederick, in 2016. Two years later daughter Isla joined the family.

The actor most recently appeared in Netflix drama series Sweet Magnolias.