Sometimes, a celebrity pairing will be so left of field that it feels like it’s come from nowhere. Enter: rogue celebrity relationships. Take Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson for example. We never would have seen that coming, and despite it being short-lived, it was beautiful while it lasted.
This is how Emily in Paris fans have felt after discovering that one of the show’s leading men, Lucien Laviscount (who plays Alfie), once dated Kerry Katona. The pair dated 12 years ago after meeting in the Celebrity Big Brother house in 2011. Lucien was 19 at the time, and had starred in Waterloo Road, while Atomic Kitten singer Kerry was 31.
Kerry recently commented on their brief relationship, stating: “Lucien was very charming and obviously easy on the eye, and it was all just a bit of fun.”
In a new interview with Vogue, the actor said that the public had a very different idea of who she should be dating.
We are so here for love in all its forms so we salute all these couples for making it work despite their naysayers. From Kerry and Lucien to Cher and Tom Cruise, and Hilary Duff and Joel Madden, here are the celebrity pairings we never saw coming.
Emily in Paris fans went wild at the start of 2023 after realising that Kerry Katona and Lucien Laviscount (who plays Alfie in the Netflix show) once dated.
The romance, which had a 12-year age gap, was brief - but they did do a joint magazine interview at the time in which Lucien described Kerry as “amazing” and added: “When I’m with her, I don’t feel like there’s an age gap at all.”
Sure, Pete Davidson has been with his fair share of gorgeous women - his short engagement with Ariana Grande even birthed the phrase “Big Dick Energy” - but we never would have paired the former Saturday Night Live star with Kim Kardashian.
Despite their ultimately short-lived relationship, which ended mutually in August 2022 after nine months of dating, Kim and Pete were seriously cute together, with Kim even stating on her The Kardashians: “Pete has got to be literally the best human being I have ever met.” Aw, guys.
When news that Cheryl was dating One Direction’s Liam Payne broke in 2016, it came as a shock - not least because they first met when Liam initially auditioned for The X Factor way back in 2008 as a 14-year-old.
The pair reconnected over eight years later and went on to have a son, Bear, together, before calling it quits in 2018.
After Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow “consciously uncoupled” in 2014, the Coldplay frontman started dating was Dakota Johnson.
In all seriousness, the way they met was actually pretty sweet. Dakota told Vanity Fair in 2022 that the pair met through a friend and “never really left each other”. Despite the 13-year age gap, the couple have been dating for over five years now, and the pair often hang out with Gwyneth and her new hubby, Brad Falchuck.
The TV staple and the movie star began dating in the mid-1990s after Julia Roberts appeared on an episode of Matthew Perry’s hit show Friends.
A spokesperson confirmed the news in January 1996, saying they had gone on a “couple of dates”. In Matthew’s 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, he described it as a “three-month courtship” via daily faxes while Julia was working on a film in France.
“I was so excited that some nights I would find myself out at some party sharing a flirtatious exchange with an attractive woman and cut the conversation short so I could race home and see if a new fax had arrived. Nine times out of ten, one had,” he wrote.
Talk bout rogue celebrity relationships. Hilary Duff was just 16 when she started dating 25-year-old Good Charlotte frontman, Joel Madden. The pair dated for two and a half years before ultimately calling it quits in 2006.
Soon after, Joel met and married Nicole Richie - but he and Hilary still remain on good terms, and were even spotted on a group date with their respective spouses in 2022.
At this stage, we thought we had Ryan Reynolds' type pinned down to a tee: a blonde, exceedingly beautiful actor. After all, his two marriages have been to Scarlett Johansson and now Blake Lively.
So it may come as a surprise that Ryan once dated an exceedingly beautiful singer with brown hair: Alanis Morisette. The actor and Wrexham FC owner started dating the “Ironic” singer in 2002 and even got engaged in 2004 - but the pair called it off in 2007.
No, Janet Jackson and Matthew McConaughey did not have a long, drawn-out relationship, but yes, they did date (albeit briefly).
After meeting in 2002, rumours swirled that the pair dated - something Matthew denied at the time. However, in 2019 he told Andy Cohen that they did go on a date. “We went and had dinner. That was sort of it,” he explained.
Yes, this really happened. Cher and Tom Cruise first met in 1985 at Madonna and Sean Penn’s wedding when Tom was 23 and Cher was 38.
While they only dated for a brief time, Cher later joked that Tom was among her “top five lovers”. “It’s not a long list, just a good list,” she told Andy Cohen. “It could have been a great big romance, because I was crazy for him.”
Two more celebs we never thought would have met, let alone dated, but Carmen Electra and Simon Cowell dated for around six months back in 2012.
It ended with a bang, however, with Carmen reportedly catching Simon with Lauren Silverman while they were together. Simon later had a child with Lauren and they are now engaged.
He was a boy, she was a girl, can we make it any more obvious? (Sorry). Avril Lavigne enjoyed a whirlwind romance with Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger in the early 2010s.
The pair got engaged after just one month of dating in 2012, were married in 2013 but divorced just two years later in 2015. “We bonded like crazy,” Avril told People magazine after they married. “It was like we’d known each other forever.”
Shortly after Heidi Klum split from her first husband, hairstylist Ric Pipino in 2002, she was spotted hanging out with Red Hot Chili Peppers front man Anthony Kiedis.
The pair only dated for a brief amount of time - the supermodel went on to marry Seal in 2005 - but reports at the time spotted them riding a motorbike together and “canoodling in a café”.
Ellie Goulding fully embraced her emo era while dating dubstep aficionado Skrillex in 2012 - even going so far as to have matching half-shaved hairstyles with the DJ.
The pair met after Ellie provided the vocals on the Skrillex track “Summit”, but reportedly called time after nine months of dating due to the long-distance nature of the relationship.
While we all know that Mila Kunis and Macauley Kulkin dated (for eight years, yep!), did you know that Emma Stone and Macauley's brother, Succession star Kieran Culkin were once an item?
They began dating in 2010 before Emma was a household name, but split just a year later in 2011. The pair reunited in 2022 for a cute photo op at the Met Gala.
We’re calling this one rogue simply because it came out of absolutely nowhere. After Taylor Swift split from Calvin Harris in 2016 after 15 months of dating, the superstar singer started dating Tom Hiddleton just two weeks later. Yep, we had whiplash too.
The “Lover” singer and the Thor star, who were dubbed “Hiddleswift” by fans, spent the summer together before breaking up in September.
Ah, we love love.
