Yahoo Lifestyle "I Saw On Twitter That My Husband Has Filed For Divorce": 19 Celeb Breakups That Played Out Verrry Publicly
There are some rare celeb relationships that the public has no idea about. However, for most people in the spotlight, their love lives seem very, very public — and therefore so do their breakups.
Here are 19 celebs who opened up about navigating their very public breakups:
1.Joe Alwyn and Taylor Swift ended their six-year relationship in 2023. A year later, he told the Sunday Times, "What is unusual and abnormal in this situation is that, one week later, it's suddenly in the public domain, and the outside world is able to weigh in."
He continued, "So you have something very real suddenly thrown into a very unreal space: tabloids, social media, press, where it is then dissected, speculated on, pulled out of shape beyond recognition. And the truth is, to that last point, there is always going to be a gap between what is known and what is said. I have made my peace with that."
He also said they made the mutual decision to "keep the more private details of [their] relationship private."
2.Sofía Vergara and Joe Manganiello were married for seven years before divorcing in 2023. In early 2024, she told CBS Sunday Morning, "You're out there, and people know that's part of being a celebrity. I knew it was gonna happen. You can't hide those things."
She also said, "It wasn't bad. I think, you know, I have to say the press was very respectful and very nice. And I thought that they were gonna invent more things, and you know how it usually is. I was surprised and, you know, they, they kind of just said what it was and, and that was it."
3.In 1998, Matt Damon publicly ended his year-long relationship with Minnie Driver by announcing he was single on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Afterward, Minnie told the LA Times, "Everything has to be made so mythic. There are these archetypes that everybody has to take apart. I had to be the victim. It's horrendous breaking up with someone anyway, but to have it be so public and to be cast in a role that I would never play if they were paying me — this wronged woman! It's unfortunate that Matt went on Oprah; it seemed like a good forum for him to announce to the world that we were no longer together, which I found fantastically inappropriate. Of course, he was busy declaring his love for me on David Letterman a month previously."
Then, in her 2022 memoir Managing Expectations, she reflected on the surreal feeling of watching her breakup play out on tabloid covers in her local grocery store.
She wrote, "It's funny now, when I think about walking down the magazine aisle in my local supermarket at midnight with my best friend, we were like, 'Are you seeing this? This is super weird.' My friend, Alexandra was like, 'Oh my god, I can't believe this is happening, like, I feel like we're in a movie. I would totally watch this movie, even though I know you're super heartbroken, but this is really weird.'"
The attention continued as she and Matt promoted Good Will Hunting through awards season. She said, "There's a guy who'd been sent, the cameraman at the Academy Awards — he'd literally been told to, like, stay on me and, like, he was so in my grill, he was like a wildlife photographer waiting for the kill. He was just waiting for the moment that I was going to break, or something was going to happen, or I was going to get up and scream. He'd been told, 'Stay on her, bud. Something's gonna happen.'"
However, her dad sat with her through the Oscars, making her feel protected.
She said, "I look back, and it just feels really overly dramatic and kind of funny — brutal, but funny."
4.In 2011, Kris Humphries and Kim Kardashian were infamously married for 72 days. In a 2019 essay for The Player's Tribune, he wrote, "There's definitely a lot about that world that is not entirely real. But our actual relationship was 100% real. When it was clear that it wasn't working…what can I say? It sucked. It's never easy to go through the embarrassment of something like that — with your friends, with your family…But when it plays out so publicly, in front of the world, it's a whole other level. It was brutal."
"I didn't know how to handle it because I never thought I was going to be famous in that way. I remember having this moment when I was getting booed so hard in Philly, and I thought to myself, 'Why exactly are they booing me, though? Is it just because I'm That Guy from TV? Do they think I was trying to be famous? Is it because they think I disrespected the game of basketball?' The last one killed me because all I've ever wanted to be known for was basketball. My whole life, I was a really confident, happy person. But nothing can prepare you for the feeling of walking down the street, or being anywhere, really — the grocery store, the gas station — and having people literally running up on you and trying to film you, trying to grab you, saying God knows what."
He said that he "dealt with a lot of anxiety" and was "in a dark place" for about a year.
He said, "I didn't want to be Kris Humphries. It's the craziest feeling in the world, not wanting to be yourself. And I didn't even want to say anything to defend myself because it felt like I couldn't win. You can't go up against the tabloids. You can't go up against that machine. There's no point. And even if I played that game, I felt like it would be disrespecting the game of basketball."
5.In 2023, Sophie Turner's four-year marriage to Joe Jonas ended in a highly publicized divorce, and tabloid speculation ran rampant. In 2024, she told British Vogue, "I mean, those were the worst few days of my life. I remember I was on set; I was contracted to be on set for another two weeks, so I couldn't leave. My kids were in the States, and I couldn't get to them because I had to finish Joan. And all these articles started coming out...It hurt because I really do completely torture myself over every move I make as a mother – mum guilt is so real!"
She continued, "I just kept having to say to myself, 'None of this is true. You are a good mum, and you've never been a partier.'...I mean, it's unfathomable the amount of people that will just make shit up and put it up based on a picture. A picture might tell a thousand words, but it's not my story. It felt like I was watching a movie of my life that I hadn't written, hadn't produced, or starred in. It was shocking. I'm still in shock."
6.In a 2023 Instagram post, Lupita Nyong'o announced her breakup with Selema Masekela after a year together. She wrote, "I find myself in a season of heartbreak because of a love suddenly and devastatingly extinguished by deception. I am tempted to run into the shadows and hide, only to return to the light when I have regained my strength enough for me to say, 'Whatever, my life is better this way.' But I am reminded that the magnitude of the pain I am feeling is equal to the measure of my capacity for love."
Karwai Tang / WireImage / Via Getty, Paul Morigi / Getty Images for SiriusXM
She continued, "And so, I am choosing to face the pain, cultivating the courage to meet my life exactly as it is, and trusting that this too shall pass. The promise, they say, is that a tender heart is what gives birth to fearlessness. I hope it's true… I share this to keep it 💯, and hoping that the knowledge of my experience might be useful to someone else out there experiencing the grip of heartbreak who is poised to try and escape from the pain and miss out on the wisdom that comes from it."
Then, in 2024, she told Glamour, "I wanted to be honest. Honestly, the thought of having to update people one at a time was going to be harrowing. I had made the choice to share the relationship with the world, and I wanted to make the choice to share the end of it with the world."
"I knew that announcing it or sharing it with the world would mean there would be a reverb, and I would have to deal with the onset of that...There is a time to be open, and there's a time not to be, and I chose that time to be open. I'm very happy with what I did, and I don't want to do it anymore. I don't want to share that part of myself anymore," she said.
7.In 2014, Calvin Harris reportedly caught Rita Ora unaware when he announced the end of their year-long relationship on Twitter then barred her from performing "I Will Never Let You Down" — which he wrote and produced — at the Teen Choice Awards.
His since-deleted breakup tweet said, "To address speculation – myself and Rita ended our relationship some time ago. She is a beautiful, talented woman & I wish her all the best."
In 2015, Rita told Marie Claire, "There was a reason why I split up with him. And there was a reason why I'm at this point in my life where I feel like I have so much musical freedom, and I don't have to explain myself to anybody…It was more of a thing where I was in awe. I was at that point in my relationship where I felt he could do no wrong. I thought he had my back and that he'd never steer me wrong. But then 'I Will Never Let You Down' came out, and everything started to go a bit weird."
"I don't know if it was because business was mixed with personal or what," she said.
8.Calvin Harris and Taylor Swift ended their 15-month relationship in 2016. Initially, he tweeted, "The only truth here is that a relationship came to an end & what remains is a huge amount of love and respect." Taylor reposted it.
However, two weeks later, Taylor was publicly spotted with her new partner, Tom Hiddleston, and Calvin unfollowed her, wiped her from his social media, and seemingly made multiple shady comments about her online.
Things escalated when, about a month later, Taylor's reps confirmed rumors that she co-wrote Calvin's collab with Rihanna, "This Is What You Came For," under a pseudonym. In a series of since-deleted tweets, Calvin praised her work and confirmed she also sang a bit on the track but "initially she wanted it kept secret." However, he followed up with this: "Hurtful to me at this point that her and her team would go so far out of their way to try and make ME look bad at this stage though."
He continued, "I figure if you're happy in your new relationship you should focus on that instead of trying to tear your ex bf down for something to do...I know you're off tour and you need someone new to try and bury like Katy [Perry] ETC but I'm not that guy, sorry. I won't allow it. [sic]"
However, a few months later, he told British GQ, "It's very difficult when something I consider so personal plays out very publicly. The aftermath of the relationship was way more heavily publicized than the relationship itself. When we were together, we were very careful for it not to be a media circus. She respected my feelings in that sense. I'm not good at being a celebrity. But when it ended, all hell broke loose. Now I see that Twitter thing as a result of me succumbing to pressure. It took me a minute to realize that none of that matters. I'm a positive guy."
9.In 2009, Lindsay Lohan went through an eventful breakup with her girlfriend of almost two years, Samantha Ronson, who reportedly hired security to block Lindsay from a party at a hotel they were both staying at, changed the locks on their shared home, and looked into getting a restraining order.
At the time, Lindsay told Us Weekly, "Everyone's turned on me...I'm just really hurt! The whole situation is sick."
The night of the party, Lindsay reportedly tweeted, "Being cheated on does wonders to you. I'm doing this publicly because u&ur friends call People [magazine]. So you win, you broke my heart. Now go away. I loved you. [sic]"
She continued, "PLEASE leave me ALONE. and stop staying in the room below me, you've woken me and my mother up. go to bed. keep cheating u win. [sic]"
10.In 2022, Jason Momoa and Lisa Bonet announced the end of their 16-year relationship/five-year marriage in a joint Instagram post. In another Instagram post two months later, he praised his step-daughter Zoë Kravitz's performance in The Batman then added, "Mahalo to the fans and press for being generous and giving us space for the children. It’s hard enough separating in the public eye."
"We appreciate the continued privacy through these times," he said.
11.In 2015, Perrie Edwards's four-year relationship with her then-fiancé, Zayn Malik, ended. Appearing on The Jonathan Ross Show the following year, she said, "For a normal girl to go through something like that, it's hard. I think when the whole world is looking at it and talking about it, you feel a bit [affected by it]."
She continued, "Obviously, I didn't say too much about it; I briefly mentioned it. I wasn't going to not mention it...You're in control at the end of the day and I briefly mentioned it, kind of said what happened, but I would never get into detail because it is personal."
12.Madelyn Cline dated her Outer Banks costar Chase Stokes from 2020-2021. In 2023, she told Cosmopolitan, "My thing is, I don't owe anyone an explanation. I am a really private person. There's a part of me that is for me and nobody else. But in hindsight, duh, making my relationship public made it everybody else's business. And I realized the negative side effects of that while going through the breakup, realizing I had let people in and then felt like I couldn't get anybody out."
She continued, "It just hit me like a freight train. I wanted us both to move on and be happy. People see the need for sides. There are no sides — there's no winning or losing in a breakup."
13.In early 2023, Michael B. Jordan and Lori Harvey ended their year-long relationship.
He addressed the split for the first time in his Saturday Night Live monologue.
Here's the full clip, with this part starting at the 1:20 mark:
14.After a whirlwind engagement and six-month marriage [including a wedding that was featured on The Kardashians], Lukas Gage and Chris Appleton divorced in 2023. Appearing on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen in early 2024, Lukas said, "I had a manic episode for six months. Those furry jackets...I don't know what literally went through my head, but we live, and we learn."
He also said, "I'm a little impulsive. But that was probably one of the most unhinged things I've ever done in my life, and I'll probably have six other marriages."
Additionally, he apologized to Shania Twain, who performed at their wedding, for wasting her time, and to Kim Kardashian, who "was really sweet to fly [them] all out and take care of [them] and pay for everything."
15.Shakira's 11-year relationship with Gerard Piqué ended in 2022, leading to lots of intense, messy speculation and the singer's record-smashing diss track, "Shakira: BZRP Music Sessions, Vol. #53."
In 2024, Shakira told Rolling Stone, "I started to see that my fans were there for me. We’re in a society that’s used to seeing women confront pain in a submissive way, and I think that’s changed."
She also said, "In finding this freedom, I also found myself. This has been a journey back to myself, and the way there was through my music. I’m in a moment where the worst has happened, and this process woke up a new sense of autonomy and independence in me."
16.Following the end of their seven-year engagement in 2020, Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis went through a custody battle.
She was infamously served custody papers from him live on stage mid-presentation at CinemaCon 2022.
Jason's reps told Variety, "Mr. Sudeikis had no prior knowledge of the time or place that the envelope would have been delivered as this would solely be up to the process service company involved and he would never condone her being served in such an inappropriate manner."
Olivia told Variety, "It was my workplace. In any other workplace, it would be seen as an attack. It was really upsetting. It shouldn’t have been able to happen. There was a huge breach in security, which is really scary...I hated that this nastiness distracted from the work of so many different people and the studio that I was up there representing."
"To try to sabotage that was really vicious. But I had a job to do; I’m not easily distracted. But, you know, sadly, it was not something that was entirely surprising to me. I mean, there’s a reason I left that relationship...The only people who suffered were my kids, because they’ll have to see that, and they shouldn’t ever have to know that happened. For me, it was appalling, but the victims were an 8- and 5-year-old, and that’s really sad. I chose to become an actress; I willingly walked into the spotlight. But it’s not something my children have asked for. And when my kids are dragged into it, it’s deeply painful," she said.
17.In 2005, Sienna Miller performed in As You Like It on West End seven times a week while her then-fiancé Jude Law's cheating scandal played out across the tabloids. In 2020, she told the Daily Beast, "That was one of the most challenging moments I hope I'll ever have to experience. Because with that level of public heartbreak, to have to get out of a bed let alone stand in front of 800 people every night, it's just the last thing you want to do. It was really hard."
"And the other thing was, it was at the height of all that paparazzi madness, and in London where there was an epidemic of bad behavior. They knew where I would be every night," she said.
She said that she was in such a state of "shock" that she can't recall six weeks of that period of her life. However, she handled the situation by taking legal action.
She said, "I'm pretty resilient. There were moments where it came close to making me really feel crazy, and it was incredibly aggressive. The way I managed it was to get really litigious, start suing. I secretly recorded paparazzi on a lighter that was a camera and got a privacy act taken to a high court to get the law changed in England, which essentially means that if I'm anywhere or coming out of anywhere where I can expect privacy, they're not allowed to take my photo. It was a long battle, and I think I was really paranoid. There was so much noise that it was hard to think straight and focus on my work, which I always took very seriously. It ate everything else. I look back on it and wonder how I did get through it — but I did."
18.Pete Davidson and Ariana Grande had an infamous whirlwind engagement in 2018. The following year, she told Vogue he'd been an "amazing distraction." So, in his Netflix stand-up special Alive from New York, Pete said, "Can you imagine if I did that? My career would be over tomorrow. If I spray-painted myself brown and hopped on the cover of Vogue magazine and just started shitting on my ex."
"Can you imagine if I did that shit? If I was just like, 'Yeah, I was just fucking her 'cause I was bored, and then Fortnite came out.' It would be insane," he said. "Something had to happen to her. There had to be some repercussions, right? No, she won Billboard's Woman of the Year and I got called 'butthole eyes.'"
19.And finally, The Real Housewives of Atlanta star Porscha Williams was married to Kordell Stewart from 2011-2013. She found out about their split on social media. The year of their divorce, she told ABC News, "I literally was lying in bed, and I looked at Twitter, and it was going crazy. I saw on Twitter that my husband has filed for divorce."
Bravo / Via youtube.com
Assuming it must be a terrible rumor, she tried to talk about it with Kordell, who was down the hall.
She said, "It wasn't a confrontation. It was me just simply asking my husband, 'Had you filed?,' which seemed crazy coming out of my mouth. He said he thought about it and we'll talk about it later and he left for work. I had to call my attorney to find out...I feel heartbroken, and at times I feel ashamed. Because I put myself out there to the world as a wife, and I was proud to be married, and for it to end the way it did, it's almost like a failure in a way. But I do know that God has more for me."
