Sometimes in Hollywood, a co-star becomes more than a colleague, and a film set becomes the backdrop for a real-life romance that attracts far more attention than the project itself.
When either person is married, however, the story can become complicated, with new relationships drawing scrutiny over their timing and the circumstances surrounding previous breakups.
Several Hollywood couples have faced these questions, and while speculation doesn’t always tell the full story, interest in their relationships has endured long after filming wrapped.
Here are 15 married Hollywood stars whose romances with their co-stars became the subject of public debate.
#1 Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds met his now-wife, Blake Lively, on the set of Green Lantern in 2010.
At the time, he was married to Scarlett Johansson, while she was dating her Gossip Girl co-star Penn Badgley.
Reynolds and Johansson announced their separation that December. He and Lively went public as a couple in October 2011, after his divorce had been finalized.
Even so, the timeline has continued to fuel speculation that their romance began earlier.
In 2024, media commentator and author Cat Marnell alleged in a since-deleted post that Reynolds and Lively had hooked up in New Orleans while filming and claimed their team had suppressed a story about it.
Perez Hilton publicized the allegation, but never verified it.
Reynolds has repeatedly addressed and pushed back against the rumors over the years.
In a 2011 interview with Details magazine, he said, “The media was not invited to my marriage, and they’re definitely not invited to the divorce.”
“There was no story and no scandal,” he added.
In a 2016 interview with SiriusXM’s Entertainment Weekly Radio, he described his initial relationship with Lively as a friendship.
“We were buddies then” and went on “a double date” with other people about a year after Green Lantern, he said.
Image source: Kevin Mazur/WireImage, Lester Cohen/Getty Images
#2 Hugh Jackman
Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness were once regarded as one of Tinseltown’s steadiest couples.
They met while working on the Australian television series Correlli in 1995 and married the following year, remaining together until announcing their separation in 2023.
Following the announcement, attention quickly turned to Jackman’s The Music Man co-star Sutton Foster, with headlines speculating about a possible offstage romance.
Furness filed for divorce in 2025 and issued a pointed statement to the Daily Mail that was widely interpreted as a response to the affair rumors.
“My heart and compassion go out to everyone who has traversed the traumatic journey of betrayal. It’s a profound wound that cuts deep,” she said.
Fans also resurfaced an old social media post in which Jackman joked about “cheating.”
“To cheat or not to cheat,” he had written while asking about sneaking a cookie during a diet. The lighthearted food-related remark, however, took on a different meaning once rumors about his relationship with Foster began circulating.
Jackman and Foster reportedly got engaged in early 2026 following a proposal in Costa Rica, and the couple is said to be planning their wedding.
Reports also suggested that the pair was working on a $200 million prenuptial agreement.
Image source: thehughjackman, Kevin Mazur/MG26/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue
#3 Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson first crossed paths on Bosom Buddies in 1981, then worked together again on Volunteers in 1985.
By the time of the latter film, Hanks was married to Samantha Lewes, his college sweetheart and the mother of their two children.
The couple separated in 1985 and divorced in 1987. Hanks later recalled his instant attraction to Wilson with a sound effect.
“Rita and I just looked at each other and — kaboing — that was that,” he said.
He also acknowledged the uncomfortable timing of their connection, saying, “I did happen to be married at the time. And there’s nothing to celebrate about that.”
Their relationship is often remembered as a lasting showbiz romance, but Hanks himself acknowledged that it began under controversial circumstances.
Image source: Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for LACMA
#4 Ethan Slater
Jon M. Chu’s Wicked brought Ethan Slater and Ariana Grande together on a major musical production, and into a relationship that quickly became one of Hollywood’s most debated romances.
Slater was married to his high school sweetheart, Lily Jay, while Grande was married to Dalton Gomez when they began filming. Their separations and new relationship became public within a relatively short period in 2023, prompting questions about the timing.
Jay’s reaction made the story more personal than a typical co-star romance.
“My family is just collateral damage,” she told Page Six, also calling Grande “not a girl’s girl.”
Slater filed for divorce shortly afterward, and he and Grande were publicly linked.
Grande later challenged the way the press and public had portrayed their relationship.
“We selectively remember that this is what the tabloids do to people, especially women, based on whether or not we like the person,” she told the Daily Beast.
Image source: Mark Sagliocco/WireImage, Rich Polk/Penske Media via Getty Images
#5 Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston married in 2000. Pitt met Angelina Jolie while they played a married pair of assassins in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which was filmed in 2004 and released the following year.
When Pitt and Aniston announced their separation in January 2005, the film’s on-screen chemistry became the focus of debate about a possible affair.
Jolie later said she and Pitt fell in love while making the movie, while Pitt maintained that their relationship began after he and the Friends star had split.
“We were still filming after Jen and I split up,” he told W magazine. “Even then, it doesn’t mean that there was some kind of dastardly affair. There wasn’t.”
The conflicting accounts kept the controversy alive for years.
Jolie’s comments tied their romance to the film, while Pitt denied that he had been unfaithful to Aniston.
Regardless of what really happened, the story became one of the celebrity world’s most talked-about love triangles of the 2000s.
Pitt and Jolie later married in 2014, but separated in 2016.
Image source: Evan Agostini/Getty Images, Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images
#6 Thomas Sadoski
Thomas Sadoski and Amanda Seyfried met in 2015 while starring in the off-Broadway production The Way We Get By.
They played a couple onstage, but their real lives were more complicated, with Sadoski being married to casting director Kimberly Hope, and Seyfried dating Justin Long.
Sadoski and Hope separated in 2015. Seyfried and Sadoski later reunited while filming The Last Word, where they again played love interests, and their off-screen relationship began in 2016.
The sequence sparked a familiar question: had Seyfried played a part in the end of Sadoski’s first marriage?
Seyfried addressed the speculation in 2018.
“We were both in bad relationships,” she said of the time they met, adding, “He never flirted, never disrespected his wife.”
The duo got married in 2017. Sadoski later described their nuptials as “beautiful” and “everything that it should be,” recalling that it was simply the two of them talking to each other.
They went on to have two children and largely kept their family life out of the spotlight.
In September 2026, they announced their separation.
“We have been separated for a while, and it’s proven to be the right move for us and our family unit,” their joint statement read.
Image source: Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic, Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Searchlight
#7 Rowan Atkinson
Rowan Atkinson and BBC makeup artist Sunetra Sastry were married for 24 years and had two children.
In 2013, Atkinson appeared in the West End production of Quartermaine’s Terms alongside comedian Louise Ford.
The following year, Atkinson and Sastry separated, and his relationship with Ford became public around the same period.
Sastry was granted a divorce in 2015, reportedly on the grounds of Atkinson’s “unreasonable behavior.”
The court did not publicly detail what that behavior involved, leaving the circumstances of the split largely out of view.
Years later, in March 2025, the couple’s daughter, Lily, opened up about how the breakdown of her parents’ marriage affected her.
Reflecting on her twenties in a social media post, she described experiencing “chaos and loneliness” and feeling lost as she struggled to find her place in the world.
Lily is also among the celebrity children who have dropped their father’s surname in favor of their mother’s.
Image source: Stuart Wilson/Getty Images, David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images
#8 Ewan Mcgregor
Ewan McGregor and Mary Elizabeth Winstead met while working on Fargo, playing characters whose stories became romantically entangled. In real life, McGregor was married to Eve Mavrakis, while Winstead was married to Riley Stearns.
Winstead announced her separation in May 2017 with a warm message: “We will stay best friends and collaborators for all our days. We are still ride or di*, just in a different way now.”
Months later, photographers captured McGregor and her kissing at a London café, sparking speculation about an affair.
The day after the pictures surfaced, however, People reported that McGregor and Mavrakis had also been separated since May.
At the 2018 Golden Globes, McGregor thanked Mavrakis and their four children before praising Winstead’s performance, saying, “There would be no Ray without Mary Elizabeth Winstead.”
For viewers, the speech placed the end of his marriage and his new relationship in the same public moment.
The family fallout also became public.
McGregor’s daughter Clara called Winstead “a piece of trash” in an Instagram comment, then later apologized, explaining that she had been angry and upset.
McGregor and Winstead married in 2022 and welcomed a son.
Image source: KMazur/WireImage, Carlo Paloni/BAFTA via Getty Images
#9 Ryan Phillipe
Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon married in 1999 and had two children together.
By 2006, their marriage was unraveling, around the time Phillippe was filming Stop-Loss with Australian actor Abbie Cornish.
Rumors soon circulated that the co-stars had become romantically involved during production.
Witherspoon filed for divorce in November, citing irreconcilable differences, and Cornish was quickly branded “the other woman.”
Phillippe pushed back against the idea that an outsider alone could be blamed for the split.
“I don’t think an outside person can ever cause a divorce,” he told W magazine.
“I had difficulties in my relationship and in my marriage long before I ever met her,” he explained.
Image source: Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic, Jeff Vespa/WireImage
#10 Ted Danson
Ted Danson and Whoopi Goldberg had crossed paths before, but their relationship deepened while they worked together on Made in America in 1993.
Danson was married to producer Cassandra Coates at the time, and their romance becoming public led Coates to file for divorce after 16 years of marriage.
Although Danson and Goldberg’s relationship lasted only about 18 months, an appearance at an early ‘90sFriars Club roast honoring Goldberg ensured that it would be remembered for much longer.
The actor appeared in blackface and delivered a routine that included racial slurs.
He revisited the incident this June and apologized, saying he would keep apologizing “for the rest of my life.”
Goldberg later described the breakup as the loss of a friend as well as a romantic partner.
“It was really painful, and it was very public,” she said.
“The loss of his friendship hurt a great deal. We can never go and have a soda anywhere.”
Image source: Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images, Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images
#11 Gary Oldman
Gary Oldman and Lesley Manville married in 1987, and their son, Alfie, was born the following year.
Manville later described the early days of motherhood as a happy time that was followed by an abrupt change.
“We got married. I got pregnant on my honeymoon. We were having the best time, but then the rug was severely pulled from under my feet,” she said.
Oldman met Uma Thurman while filming State of Grace. Manville has said that Oldman left when their son was only about three months old.
Oldman and Thurman married in 1990, the same year his marriage to Manville ended, but their own union lasted only until 1992.
Thurman later described Oldman as her first love and their relationship as “a crazy love affair that ended as it needed to be.”
The brief marriage followed a painful chapter for Manville, who was left raising their infant son.
Image source: Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images, Jacopo Raule/Getty Images
#12 Kenneth Branagh
Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh met while filming Fortunes of War in 1987, married in 1989, and became one of Britain’s most celebrated couples.
Their marriage, however, began to unravel while Branagh was making Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in 1994.
He directed and starred in the film, which also featured Helena Bonham Carter.
Branagh and Bonham Carter reportedly began an affair, and Thompson and Branagh separated in 1995 after six years of marriage.
Thompson later said she had not seen the betrayal coming.
“I was utterly blind to the fact that he had relationships with other women on set,” she told The New Yorker.
About the toll her failed marriage took on her mental well-being, she added, “I was half alive. Any sense of being a lovable or worthy person had gone completely.”
Image source: Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images, Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
#13 Paul Newman
Paul Newman met Joanne Woodward while they were working on the Broadway play Picnic in 1953.
At the time, he was married to Jackie Witte, with whom he had three children.
Newman and Woodward’s connection eventually developed into a relationship that continued for years before he divorced Witte in 1958.
Later that year, Newman married Woodward, and the couple remained together for 50 years, until his demise in 2008.
Despite building a lasting marriage with Woodward, Newman continued to feel remorse over how he had treated his first wife.
He once admitted that he felt “guilty as hell” about the way he had handled his marriage to Witte, adding, “I’ll carry it with me for the rest of my life.”
He also reflected on his shortcomings, acknowledging, “I was probably too immature to make a success of my first marriage.”
His words revealed that even a relationship remembered as a Hollywood success story could have a far more complicated beginning.
Image source: oldhollywoodcouples, Screen Collection/Getty Images
#14 Eddie Cibrian
Eddie Cibrian and LeAnn Rimes met on the set of Northern Lights in 2008.
Both were married at the time: Cibrian to Brandi Glanville and Rimes to Dean Sheremet.
Reports of an affair surfaced the following year, and both marriages ended soon afterward.
Rimes and Cibrian married in 2011, but the controversy did not disappear into the gossip archives.
Rimes later acknowledged the harm caused by her actions, saying, “I did one of the most selfish things that I possibly could do, in hurting someone else. I take responsibility for everything I’ve done.”
Years later, she reflected on the backlash and the pain involved, noting that she had also “been betrayed” in the past and understood what that felt like.
Glanville’s anger became another part of the story.
In a 2021 op-ed for The Sun, the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum said there had been “warning signs” that Cibrian had been unfaithful. When she questioned him, though, she claimed, he dismissed her as “jealous” while insisting that he “loved” her.
Glanville also described how she discovered his relationship with Rimes.
According to her account, she found video footage of the pair kissing over a table. “It was devastating. I went straight home, passed out in my closet, cried and cried,” she recalled.
She admitted that she “didn’t cope well” with Cibrian’s infidelity, saying she was angry and drinking.
She also described wanting revenge, writing, “One time, I even recorded him saying how he loved me and that he didn’t love LeAnn, and I sent it to her.”
“I wanted her to know what he was saying,” she added.
Glanville accused Rimes of taking over her life and leaving her without a voice in her marriage to Cibrian. She also said she did not want Rimes around her children.
Over time, however, she said she came to accept Rimes’s place in their lives because of Cibrian’s relationship with the children, even though the history between the women remained painful.
Image source: Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images, eddiecibrian
#15 Josh Dallas
Josh Dallas and Ginnifer Goodwin met on the set of Once Upon a Time in 2011, playing Prince Charming and Snow White.
Their fairy-tale casting made their real-life connection irresistible to fans, although there was a complication.
Dallas was married to actor Lara Pulver when he joined the show.
Dallas and Pulver separated the same year, and he and Goodwin went public with their relationship in April 2012.
He later described meeting Goodwin as a lightning strike.
“It hit me like a blinding light. I thought, ‘I’m in trouble now.’”
He also said that the pair did not fight the sparks between them. Instead, they “went straight for it.”
The pair married in 2014 and have two children.
Image source: Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic, Matei Horvath/Getty Images
Follow Us
