The most heartbreaking Hollywood splits of all time

Their breakups leave us reeling and it’s very often a case of ‘didn’t see that coming’… Or falling into the trap of thinking ‘if they can’t make it, how can I?’ Sob, sob.

Let’s take off the rose-tinted spectacles of thinking love will last forever and take a trip down heartbreak lane to revisit the saddest splits in Tinsletown.

Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth had a tumultuous on-again, off-again relationship which lasted for ten years before they finally called it quits.

They got married in 2018, but announced their split the following year. Liam, 34, confirmed the news on Instagram, posting a photo of a sunset and writing: “Just a quick note to say that Miley and I have recently separated, and I wish her nothing but health and happiness going forward.’’ He then filed for divorce eight days later citing “irreconcilable differences”.

The 31-year-old later said that it was difficult having the public see the relationship unravel and the mean stories that circulated about her. She said on the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast: “What sucked about it wasn’t the fact that me and someone that I loved realised that we don’t love each other the way that we used to anymore. That’s okay. I can accept that. I can’t accept the villainizing and all those stories.”

Miley herself has admitted that the relationship was “too much conflict”. During an appearance on the Howard Stern Show she said: “When I come home, I want to be anchored by someone. I don’t get off on drama or fighting.”

After nearly nine years together, Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan shocked Hollywood when they called it time on their marriage.

The couple met on the set of Step Up in 2006 and were adored by fans for their ‘opposite attracts’ on-screen romance. However, it seemed that being ‘opposites’ in real life didn’t make them the most suited pair.

The 44-year-old told Vanity Fair about the shock he felt in the initial stages of the split: “In the beginning, it was super scary and terrifying. Your life just turns on its axis. This whole plan that you had literally just turns into sand and goes through your fingers.’’

Welcoming children was a pivotal moment, he said. “When you’re actually parents, you really understand the differences between the two of you. How you parent differently, how you look at the world, how you go through the world.’’ He also said the divorce helped him to become closer to his daughter Everley. “I just dropped everything and just focused on her. And it was truly the best possible thing that I ever could have done. Because in the alone time that I have with just me and her, we’ve become best friends.’’

In Jenna’s book Gracefully You: Finding Beauty and Balance in the Everyday, she wrote about the end of their marriage. “I’d come to realise the dynamic I was in wasn’t serving me nor was it serving my daughter. First and foremost, I had to accept the realisation that this isn’t working and had moved into hurting’’. The co-parenting duo only settled their divorce last month after their split six years ago.

Bruce Willis and Demi Moore’s fans were devastated when they split in 1998 after being married for 11 years. However, the pair proved exes can be friends by maintaining an amicable co-parenting relationship for the sake of their three daughters Rumer, Scout and Taullah.

Over the years the former couple have talked about the importance of remaining committed to their children. Bruce told Rolling Stone: “I still love Demi. We have three children whom we will continue to raise together, and we’re probably as close now as we ever were. We realise we have a lifelong commitment to our kids.’’ He went on to explain the reality of being married in the spotlight: “It’s difficult to live your life and marriage under a magnifying glass, which is what happens to movie star couples.”

When Bruce, 69, was the focus of Comedy Central Roast, there was evidence of the couple’s continued camaraderie when Demi, 61, appeared on the show as a surprise. She roasted her husband’s film’s in front of a studio audience by joking she was “married to Bruce for the first three Die Hard movies, which makes sense because the last two sucked”. There were huge laughs from both the audience and Bruce when she added he was “easily one of my top three husbands’’.

In Demi’s memoir, Inside Out, the actress opened up about Bruce not fully wanting to commit to marriage. She wrote that he told her: “I don’t know if I want to be married.” She added: “He was 36, throw in celebrity and money. You do the math.”

Ultimately, the pair’s disagreements about Demi’s career and their own individual issues spelled the end of the relationship.“I think both of us from the outset were more passionate about having kids than we were about being married.’’

After Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe split in 2006, he was accused of cheating with his Stop-Loss co-star Abbie Cornish. Ryan refuted the claims. “I’m not a perfect person, but I’m not guilty of a lot of the things I have been accused of. My priority is and always has been the health and safety of my family,” he said in a statement.

The split came the year after Reese won an Oscar for Best Actress. “Phew, that was a tough year that followed. I got divorced the next year and I spent a few years just trying to feel better,” she said of the time during an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes.

In the years since, both Reese and Ryan — who are parents to two children, Ava and Deacon — have pointed to their young age being a big reason behind the separation. They were 23 and 35, respectively, when they got married. “When we got together we were so young,” Ryan told Larry King. “I think it can create issues with two people in this industry because there’s so much noise that goes along with it.”

Reese appeared to agree in a later interview on ITV show Lorraine, explaining: “I got married when I was 23 and I had two kids by the time I was 27. I would never change anything (but) I’ve said to my daughter, (at) 25, you start to know yourself a little bit better.”

Brangelina were the undisputed Hollywood IT couple during their 12-year relationonship, but it was all over in 2016 when Angelina Jolie filed for a divorce from Brad Pitt, and no one saw it coming.

After meeting on the set of Mr and Mrs Smith in 2005, the pair went on to have a big family of six children together — three adopted and three biological — and were married for two years.

Angelina, 49, has kept tight-lipped about her divorce, dealing with it privately. However, she did say this in an interview with The Guardian: “I’m not the kind of person who makes decisions like the decisions I had to make lightly. It took a lot for me to be in a position where I felt I had to separate from the father of my children.”

The actress admitted there was a lot she “couldn’t say’’ about the divorce although her family’s ultimate happiness was the goal. She told The Guardian she wanted to move forward with her family, “including their dad’’.

Brad is said to have something of a fractured relationship with his children. After a lengthy custody battle, Angelina now has sole custody of the kids with three of them (Shiloh, Vivienne and Zahara) removing their last name ‘Pitt’ from their surname.

The Spider-Man dream team dated each other for four years before splitting due to conflicting time schedules. This movie star couple met when Emma Stone was cast as the love interest opposite Andrew Garfield in 2004’s The Amazing Spider-Man.

Even though their relationship didn’t last, they continued to support each other’s careers from the sidelines. Andrew, 41, told Vanity Fair: “There’s so much love between us and so much respect. I’m her biggest fan as an artist.” His ex meanwhile told Vogue he was “someone I still love very much’’.

The pair have proved that exes can have a platonic relationship. Andrew gave his former girlfriend a standing ovation to his former girlfriend when Emma, 36, won Best Actress at the Golden Globes for her performance in La La Land.

The Spider-Man star spoke on Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men podcast about watching Emma shine: “It’s been bliss to be able to watch her success and watch her bloom into the actress she is.”

Life was a movie for Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling — who got together after playing the fiery love interests in The Notebook. However, the relationship was short-lived from 2004 to 2007 when they reportedly split due to their careers taking off after the film’s success.

In the film, the pair played two lovers with a passionate but sometimes turbulent romance, blighted by challenges. In real life, the pair’s relationship was were very different, however. Ryan told GQ: “God bless The Notebook. It introduced me to one of the great loves of my life. But people do Rachel and me a disservice by assuming we were anything like the people in that movie. Rachel and my love story is a hell of a lot more romantic than that.”

The reason for the split? Ryan told The Times: “Show business is the bad guy… When both people are in show business, it’s too much show business. It takes all of the light, so nothing else can grow.”

High School Musical stars Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens met when they were just starting out, but the starry-eyed couple had no idea how fast their Hollywood careers would skyrocket when the 2006 Disney Original film was released.

The couple split after four years of dating, with long distance and the fact the pair were still young commonly cited as the reason. A source told E! News: “It was nothing dramatic. There (was) no third party involved.’’

Vanessa, now 35, has since admitted she strugged with Zac’s new heart-throb status. “I went through a phase when I was really mean because I was so fed up. Girls were running after him, and I was giving them death stares. Then I realised that’s not what that’s about’’, she told the New York Times.

For his part Zac, now 37, told The Hollywood Reporter that Vanessa was “a really interesting, sweet person”, but fan’s needn’t hope for a reconciliation in the future.

This collaborative Hollywood couple ended their relationship in 2014 after being together for 14 years. Tim Burton and Helen Bonham Carter never married however, she always references this breakup as a “divorce’’.

The pair, who welcomed children Billy Raymond and Nell during their time together, are now amicable co-parents. But Helena, 58, was filled with sadness over the initial split she told Harper’s Bazaar: “With divorce, you go through massive grief — it is the death of a relationship.’’

After an adjustment period, however, the Fight Club star could see the silver linings. “At first, it’s a horrible thing to get used to, not having your children around (when you share custody). The cruelty of divorce is extraordinary. But then you get to a point where you’re like, ‘Oh, I get this week off!’ Some parts are very much to be recommended.’’’

So why, after 13 years, did the film director and his muse call it quits? Helena will not be drawn on the subject. “I have a responsibility to the children not to talk about it. As well as to Tim, I respect him. But I didn’t leave, put it that way,” she told The Guardian.

Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson’s romance was very much in the public eye. After getting married, their TV show MTV’s Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica ran for three seasons before they divorced.

When the reality stars ended things in 2005, rumours were circulating that Jessica had an affair. Whilst Jessica, now 44, shut down cheating speculation, in her memoir she did admit to an “emotional affair” with her Dukes of Hazzard co-star Johnny Knoxville.

Nick, now 50, said he was “blindsided” when Jessica pulled the plug on their marriage in a limo after the American Music Awards. In a candid interview with Rolling Stone he said: “I’ll tell you how I knew my marriage was over: I was told.’’

She told People ahead of the book’s release: “We meant a lot to each other and we always will. I want to be very respectful because I married him for a reason and we were together for seven years for a reason. He has a family now and I would never say anything to disrespect that.”

Tom, now 62, told CBS News that he “didn’t expect the divorce”, but the legal proceedings ran smoothly and a settlement was reached in 11 days. The Hollywood pair have not spoken much about the split but plenty of rumours swirled about the end of the couple’s relationship.

In the same deposition, Tom admitted that their daughter was no longer a practicing member of Scientology, but insisted: “There is no need to protect my daughter from my religion.” His admission only exacerbated rumors that the star was estranged from his daughter due to the fact that Scientology deems anyone who leaves the faith a “Suppressive Person” and encourages remaining members in the same family to cut them off.

“While we have enjoyed seven very loving, loyal, and happy years of marriage, after much soul-searching we have decided to separate,” the pair told People in a joint statement. “This is an amicable process, and protecting the well-being of our children remains our top priority, especially during this time of transition.’’

The pair — who share children Leni, Henry, Johan and Lou — wouldn’t be drawn on the reasons behind the split. Heidi, now 51, told Elle that it wasn’t important for people to know “who did what” in the wake of the break-up. “I don’t want to talk positively or negatively about the ups and downs that we had. Every couple goes through things.”

Jenifer and Justin were still best of friends when they split and even went on to celebrate a Friendsgiving gathering together. After first meeting in 2007, the pair dated from 2011 to 2018 with the split heartbreakingly being an organic parting of ways.

Speculation that the split was due to Justin being in New York and Jennifer in Los Angeles, was wide of the mark. “That’s a narrative that is not true, for the most part,’’ Justin told the New York Times, describing the split as “the most gentle separation”.

The ex-partners still support each other on Instagram. In an interview with Allure, Jennifer, now 55, opened up about her fertility journey: “I was trying to get pregnant. It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road.” Her ex, now 53, left a fistbump and heart emoji under a post of the article, showing his support for the star.

Sadly, the former couple didn’t reconcile but instead became each other’s support systems. Ben, now 52, was receiving treatment for his alcohol addiction, with Jennifer, also 52 now, pictured driving him to rehab for the third time in 2018. The actor spoke of his struggles with alcohol to the New York Times: “What happened was that I started drinking more and more when my marriage was falling apart. This was 2015, 2016. My drinking, of course, created more marital problems.” He even described his split from his ex-wife as the “biggest regret’’.

Ben spoke about being unhappy in his marriage during an appearance on the Howerd Stern Show in 2021. When asked what he would be doing if he was still married to Jennifer, he replied: “I’d probably still be drinking. It’s part of why I started drinking … because I was trapped,”

Ben did go on to clarify his comments, telling The Hollywood Reporter: “I don’t blame my ex-wife for my alcoholism. To be clear, my behavior is my responsibility entirely.’’

Throughout the years, Jennifer has always been a great supported to her ex-husband. She told Vanity Fair shortly after their split: “We still have to help each other get through this. He’s still the only person who really knows the truth about things. And I’m still the only person that knows some of his truths.”