The 10 Biggest Movie Star Affairs Of All Time (And How They Got Caught)

Even in 2024, celebrity romances make up some of the hottest gossip in the entertainment industry. While actors may always spark dating rumors just from having incredible on-screen chemistry with their scene partners, some famous co-stars really enjoyed kissing each other, enough to pursue romances off-camera. Sadly, not all these star-studded trysts have had happy endings, as the heights of celebrity fame can often lead to temptations and infidelity that threaten seemingly happy relationships.

These 10 iconic movie star couples may have fallen in love for legitimate reasons, but their relationships came to an end when one party betrayed the trust of the other, only to be caught and have their dirty laundry aired in the public eye. With that kind of scrutiny on them, one can't help but feel sorry for some of these complicated relationships, although in many cases the cheater deserves very little sympathy, even from fans. Some of these famous Hollywood flings even ignited when two movie actors pursued each other while committed to other partners or spouses themselves, resulting in a pretty messy yet all too relatable start to relationships that in some cases lasted for a while.

From a legendary romantic rendezvous in the Golden Age of Hollywood to the tabloid drama that could make or break an actor's entire career, these are the most memorable affairs involving movie stars, some of which still weigh on the individual parties' reputations to this day. 

One of the most famous Hollywood romances of the 20th century was born out of an extramarital affair. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton starred in 1963's "Cleopatra" as the queen of Egypt and Mark Antony, respectively, and its expensive production is the stuff of legend, partly due to its co-stars' romantic tension clearly showing on camera. At the time, Taylor was married to singer Eddie Fisher, while Burton was married to actress Sybil Williams, but those respective relationships didn't end too well once Taylor and Burton's love affair had started.

Fisher discovered the romance when he called Taylor — only for Burton to pick up — and soon after the two "Cleopatra" stars were caught by paparazzi off the coast of Naples. Taylor and Burton finally divorced their respective partners and married in 1964, in spite of Vatican condemnation and public scrutiny over their infidelity. The marriage lasted 10 years, before they divorced and remarried in 1975, divorcing one final time in '76. 

While Taylor remarried twice following her final split from Burton, she would allege that the epic Hollywood romance really was as grand as it seemed, saying (via The Washington Post), "After Richard, the men in my life were just there to hold the coat, to open the door. All the men after Richard were really just company." Burton even wrote Taylor a letter days before he died, declaring her his one true love. 

Before he became a romantic comedy icon in 1994 with his breakout role in "Four Weddings and a Funeral," Hugh Grant met his future wife, actress Elizabeth Hurley, while working on the 1988 period drama "Rowing with the Wind." Though they seemed to have the makings of a Hollywood "it" couple, Grant was caught up in controversy when he was arrested in 1995 for soliciting sex with a prostitute named Estella Marie Thompson (working under the name Divine Brown) in his car in Los Angeles. 

Grant's mugshot became tabloid fodder as he and Hurley were harassed by paparazzi for years after, with Grant in particular facing the brunt of the humiliation. In a famous moment on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," the host asked the British actor, "What the hell were you thinking?" Hurley, for her part, took some time before commenting to the press about her husband's incident, telling Barbara Walters (via The Guardian), "I felt like I had been shot. I ran out. I think I was — I think I am in shock."  

Despite the media circus that followed Grant's public shaming, the two remained married until what was described as an amicable split in 2000. But years later Hurley revealed there were even more differences between the two than previously thought, as they would allegedly fight constantly about having children. Nevertheless, the two since moved on and each had children in their future relationships. 

Justin Timberlake has been involved in a lot of controversy in recent years, from revelations about his relationship with Britney Spears to a driving-while-intoxicated charge in Long Island in 2024. However, none of this is new for Timberlake, who nearly squandered his marriage to actress Jessica Biel in the 2010s when it was rumored that he cheated on her with Olivia Munn. 

Timberlake allegedly pursued Munn despite still being involved with Biel, lying that they were separated as he and Munn embarked on a brief romantic affair for several days. The reports were denied by Timberlake's representatives, so it's unknown if the allegations were ever true, but if they were, Biel and Timberlake seemingly worked through the issues, as they remained together and have since had two children together. 

However, the rumor mill sparked back up in 2019 when Timberlake was spotted getting close to his "Palmer" co-star Alisha Wainwright at a bar in New Orleans, with paparazzi catching the two holding hands and touching intimately. Timberlake did address the controversy this time, writing on Instagram (via CNN), "A few weeks ago I displayed a strong lapse in judgement — but let me be clear — nothing happened between me and my costar," and publicly apologized to Biel. It'd be optimistic to trust Timberlake that both of these incidents were just baseless rumors, but given how confident Spears was about Timberlake's infidelity during their relationship, the rumors may turn out to be true.  

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were at one point the most talked-about couple in Hollywood, thanks to their romance that started on the set of the "Twilight" film franchise, in which they played lovers Bella Swan and Edward Cullen. Stewart and Pattinson were never the same after "Twilight" for many reasons, but the fairy tale love story came to an abrupt halt in 2012 when Stewart was caught by paparazzi making out with her "Snow White and the Huntsmen" director Rupert Sanders, who was himself married to Liberty Ross. 

Stewart addressed the controversy in a public apology to Pattinson, saying (via People), "This momentary indiscretion has jeopardized the most important thing in my life, the person I love and respect the most, Rob." The two briefly split before rekindling their relationship, which lasted until mid-2013, but they've been on good terms in recent years. 

However, Stewart was subject to quite a lot of public scrutiny for her infidelity, while former co-stars like Jodie Foster defended her publicly. Stewart later told Howard Stern that even though she and Sanders never actually had sex, "We lived in a different time then ... I feel like the slut-shaming that went down was, like, so absurd." In 2017, Stewart came out as bisexual and has been in a committed relationship with writer Dylan Meyer, while claiming that her affair with Sanders was the product of a self-destructive period of behavior in her early 20s. 

Brad Pitt has had one of the messiest streaks of infidelity in Hollywood history, and Angelina Jolie, for her part, was no stranger to media scrutiny over her romantic life after a high-profile romance with Billy Bob Thornton. Pitt and Jolie met on the set of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," in which the two played a married couple who discover they are both secretly spies. At the time, Pitt was married to Jennifer Aniston, but rumors suggested that it was Pitt and Jolie's chemistry that resulted in Pitt's divorce from Aniston in 2005, which Pitt denied. 

Jolie also denied the implications that she was responsible for the marriage's end, telling The New York Daily News, "To be intimate with a married man, when my own father cheated on my mother, is not something I could forgive. I could not look at myself in the morning if I did that. I wouldn't be attracted to a man who would cheat on his wife." However, "Brangelina" wouldn't last forever, as the two ended up separating in 2016 after two years of marriage and nearly a decade together. 

In the years since the split, new details have emerged of the couple's tragic true-life story, with Jolie alleging in a lawsuit that Pitt was abusive to her and their children, and tabloid rumors suggesting that a private investigator hired by Jolie uncovered an affair between Pitt and his "Allied" co-star Marion Cotillard. 

Jude Law and Sienna Miller starred in the 2004 romantic comedy "Alfie" together, and the two became engaged later that same year. Becoming the partner of a famous actor like Jude Law skyrocketed Miller to fame, but in less than a year the whirlwind romance got complicated when it was revealed that Law had an affair with his children's nanny while filming "All The Kings Men," with one of his kids catching them in bed together. 

Law quickly addressed the rumors in a public statement, saying (via The Sydney Morning Herald), "Following the reports in today's papers, I just want to say I am deeply ashamed and upset that I've hurt Sienna and the people most close to us." Although the couple tried to fix the relationship following the infidelity, they eventually split in 2006. However, Miller wasn't free from public scrutiny yet, as she was caught by paparazzi in 2008 having an affair with married actor Balthazar Getty. 

Although Getty claims the humiliation over the affair ended up strengthening his marriage, Miller had to deal with public criticism over her mistakes, telling British GQ (via The Telegraph), "I think if you put a camera in anyone's life and document it daily for six years, from the age of 21 to 27, there are going to be things that aren't always pretty." In a surprising twist of fate, Miller and Law ended up rekindling their relationship in 2009, which lasted until 2011. 

Katharine Hepburn is one of the most iconic stars in the history of Hollywood, with a voice you can recognize almost instantly and a penchant for playing fiercely independent women and intensely witty characters. However, she was not without her romances, including a four-year affair with her agent, Leland Hayward, and even a brief tryst with Howard Hughes. The most impactful relationship of Hepburn's life, however, was her affair with fellow actor Spencer Tracy, which lasted over 20 years. 

Hepburn and Tracy met in 1941 while preparing to film "Woman of the Year," and Hepburn was almost immediately drawn to her co-star, despite Tracy being still married yet essentially separated from his wife. However, Tracy, a staunch Catholic, refused to get a divorce, resulting in his love affair with Hepburn remaining intensely private yet an open secret in Hollywood. As Hepburn later wrote in her autobiography, "Me: Stories of My Life," this was preferable to her: "Even when I was living with Spencer Tracy and he and I were together for twenty-seven years, we never really thought about or discussed marriage. He was married and I wasn't interested."

Tracy eventually passed away in 1967, after Hepburn had taken a hiatus from her career to take care of him while he was ill. Their affair only became public after Tracy's wife passed in 1983, when Hepburn finally revealed it to the public and discussed the relationship at length in her autobiography. 

Ben Affleck's romantic life has caught the attention of tabloids for over 20 years, ever since the actor's high-profile relationship with Jennifer Lopez in the early 2000s (before they rekindled it in 2021, married in 2022, and called it quits again in 2024). In 2005, Affleck married another Jennifer, Jennifer Garner, after they starred in "Pearl Harbor" and "Daredevil" together. The couple had three children, but in 2015 they surprised the world by splitting up.

Affleck allegedly had an affair with his children's nanny, Christine Ouzounian, who told her friends about their rendezvous at Hotel Bel Air and boasted that they were in love. Affleck denied the rumors, but Ouzounian was also supposedly in the Bahamas with Affleck and his kids when the couple's divorce was announced. As Affleck told The New York Times about the divorce, "I have certainly made mistakes. I have certainly done things that I regret. But you've got to pick yourself up, learn from it, learn some more, try to move forward."

Garner and Affleck have remained healthy co-parents in recent years, and Garner seems to at least have retained a sense of humor about it. When Ricky Gervais joked at the 2016 Golden Globes that Matt Damon was "the only person who Ben Affleck hasn't been unfaithful to," Garner told Vanity Fair, "I laughed," adding, "No one needs to hate him for me. I don't hate him. Certainly we don't have to beat the guy up."

Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher were one of the most surprising celebrity relationships in Hollywood, given that they started dating when Kutcher was 25 and Moore was 41. They got married in 2005, though the relationship already had its hardships: as Moore later revealed in her memoir, "Inside Out," she suffered a miscarriage shortly after they began dating, and as a result, leaned heavily on drinking and abusing pills during the six-year marriage. However, Kutcher was the one to blame for their breakup. 

Kutcher cheated on Moore with San Diego administrative assistant Sara Leal, who told Us Weekly that the married actor seduced her at a party in San Diego. As Moore claimed in a statement announcing the split (via People), "As a woman, a mother and a wife there are certain values and vows that I hold sacred, and it is in this spirit that I have chosen to move forward with my life." 

To make matters worse, Moore discovered the cheating had occurred through a Google Alert on her phone and confronted Kutcher, who admitted it was true. It wasn't an isolated incident, either, as Kutcher also apparently pressured Moore into threesomes and used that to justify his cheating. Thankfully, Moore ended the relationship and moved on, while Kutcher has since faced criticism for his support of convicted assaulter Danny Masterson. 

One of the most notorious stories of Hollywood infidelity has permanently stained the name of actor and filmmaker Woody Allen, the Oscar-winning director and screenwriter behind films like "Annie Hall," "Manhattan," and "Bullets Over Broadway." Allen had been romantically tied to many actresses, including Diane Keaton, but in 1980 he began a long-term romance with actress and frequent collaborator Mia Farrow. Throughout the relationship, Farrow adopted seven children, including Dylan Farrow and Soon-Yi Previn, and later gave birth to Allen's son, Ronan Farrow. 

However, in one of the most shocking revelations in the history of Hollywood gossip, Farrow discovered nude photographs of Previn taken by Allen in 1992, leading to a confession from the filmmaker that he had slept with her. Allen alleged that he and Previn had fallen in love, claiming that he had no paternal role in the adopted child's life and that (via Salon) "the only thing unusual is that she's Mia's daughter. But she's an adopted daughter and a grown woman. I could have met her at a party or something."

After a long custody battle between Farrow and Allen, which included accusations of Allen sexually assaulting the adopted Dylan, Allen married Previn in 1997, and whether the public likes it or not, the two are still together to this day. At the very least, Allen's reputation has never recovered from the controversy. 

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, may be the victim of child abuse or sexual assault, or is dealing with domestic abuse, contact the relevant resources below:

• Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
• Contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.
• Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
• Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.