The 2000s was a decade full of A-lister celebrity pairings that have long since been forgotten. The love lives of celebrities is one of those things that we all like to pretend we don't care about, but we secretly can't help but to find ourselves wanting to know who is dating and who broke up. Not unlike when two of our longtime friends get together, there is a certain rush that comes with two celebrities we are familiar with getting into a relationship together-- and the more unlikely the pairing is, the more fascinating we find it.
A lot of celebrity relationships begin in the most obvious way possible-- two people worked together and eventually found out that they had a mutual spark that went beyond their movie, TV show, album, etc. Even when things don't happen that way, it's really not all that surprising that famous people mostly date other famous people, as that is who they tend to spend the most time around. There's also the not-insignificant little detail of famous people generally being more attractive than us civilians, and it only makes sense that super attractive people gravitate toward other super attractive people.
Ultimately, though, there isn't always a rhyme or reason to what makes two people fall in love with each other. People can control who they are attracted to about as well as meteorologists can control the weather. When a celebrity pairing occurs that either doesn't make obvious sense to us or seems to involve two people of disparate worlds coming together, we can't help being interested.
Here are 20 Surprising Couples From The 2000s Everyone Forgot About.
Ryan Reynolds and Alanis Morissette
When people talk about relationship goals, they often point to celebrity couple Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, who seem so perfect together that we can't decide whether to be more jealous of or in awe of them.
It often takes the experience of past failed relationships to get to where you can be half of such a wonderful union, and the Deadpool star definitely had a few of those before he met Lively.
Most of us immediately go to Reynolds' marriage to Scarlett Johansson when we think about his former loves-- but before those two comic book movie titans came together, Reynolds spent almost five years with music superstar Alanis Morissette.
For fans of Morissette's music, her relationship with Reynolds was probably frustrating because she recorded virtually no music while they were together.
However, their breakup sent Alanis back into the studio, where she pounded out the 11 songs that would make up her 2008 album Flavors of Entanglement.
Heath Ledger and Naomi Watts
Because it was his most recent relationship at the time of his passing and because it resulted in the birth of daughter Matilda, Heath Ledger will forever be somewhat linked to actress Michelle Williams even though they had actually called it quits prior to his tragic end.
Earlier this year, another of Ledger 's famous exes shared a photo of their time together on what would've been the actor's 39th birthday. Actress Naomi Watts recalled her two-year relationship with Heath, which lasted from about 2002 to 2004 as the actor was just starting to break into the mainstream. Watts remembers him as a "beautiful soul" with a "darling heart."
As with Williams, Ledger and Watts' relationship seems to have ended amicably, which is something of a rarity in celebrity breakups.
Jared Leto and Cameron Diaz
Apparently, it isn't only non-famous women who have a thing for musicians, as many actresses, models, et al seem to gravitate towards men in that industry. Cameron Diaz has been married to rocker Benji Madden of the band Good Charlotte since 2015-- and as we know, he wasn't the first guy with musical chops that Cameron fell for.
Prior to her three-year, mid-2000s coupling with Justin Timberlake, Cameron also dated actor and Thirty Seconds To Mars frontman Jared Leto at the turn of the millennium.
The pair were even engaged before ultimately calling it quits in 2003.
It's not clear if her broken engagement with Leto is what led to CameronDiaz later calling marriage a "[perishing] institution," but it's a stance she has obviously since changed her mind on.
Josh Hartnett and Scarlett Johansson
While a lot of actors end up getting together with their co-stars, there are some who basically make a habit of it. By his own admission, Josh Hartnett was one of those actors, the type who you could basically assume was probably going to end up dating at least one person from every movie he worked on.
You aren't going to find a lot of people who would say they regret dating someone like Scarlett Johansson, but Harnett has since done exactly that. He said of his Black Dahlia co-star-- as well as his former proclivity for bringing on-screen romances into the real world-- that dating so many people he worked with had a negative impact on his career, and also that acting in a movie with someone gives you a skewed "fantasy" version of them and that it "doesn't always work out" the way you might assume.
Edward Norton and Salma Hayek
There was a time when deals on many of Edward Norton's movies also included a clause that allowed him to do rewrites on the script-- and it even carried over to movies he wasn't the star of, such as biopic Frida that starred then-girlfriend Salma Hayek and is said to include uncredited script doctoring by the actor.
Some people have insinuated that Norton, at least back then, was equally as controlling in his personal relationships as on his movies. For her part, Salma hasn't said much about Edward as a boyfriend directly, but did say in an interview that she was once "desperate" in her look for love, "dating some people [she] shouldn't have dated."
Topher Grace and Anne Hathaway
Before Topher Grace and Anne Hathaway had in common that they both starred as somewhat superfluous characters in disappointing third installments of otherwise well-liked superhero trilogies, they had a brief fling at the very beginning of the 2000s when both of their movie careers were just beginning to take shape.
Fairly little is known about Topher and Anne's relationship, but by most accounts it was just one of those things where they didn't really connect romantically and decided to remain friends instead.
In an interesting turn of events, art would imitate life as the pair would be brought together again nearly a decade later-- this time, as on-screen lovers in the 2010 ensemble romantic comedy Valentine's Day. Of course, with the approximately 4,000 people in that movie, you'd be forgiven for not even realizing either of them were in it.
Jake Gyllenhaal and Kirsten Dunst
While their careers have taken very different trajectories since then, Jake Gyllenhaal and and Kirsten Dunst were both part of the same generation of young Hollywood up-and-comers in the mid-2000s. The pair not only dated, but actually shared a home in Los Angeles for two years.
They had a dog together, named Atticus, which to many is about the strongest sign of commitment that can possibly exist between two people.
Looking back on their relationship a couple of years after it had ended, Dunst told US Weekly that while it "would be nice to see him," she also explained that they are "not good friends." She didn't really elaborate on that any further, but it seems as though there wasn't much in the way of lingering feelings between the ex-lovers.
Kirsten is currently engaged to her Fargo co-star Jesse Plemons.
Ryan Gosling and Sandra Bullock
One of the most iconic romantic movies of the 2000s is The Notebook, with its lead characters being something of a modern Romeo and Juliet for people of a certain age. The fact that stars Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams also began dating in real life after meeting on the set of the film only further cemented the movie's heart-wrenching legacy.
In fact, their relationship cast such a huge shadow over the entire decade that it was easy to miss Gosling dating another huge star of romance-heavy movies during the 2000s: Sandra Bullock.
His relationship with Sandra may have been shorter and predated his romance with McAdams, but the two sets of relationships are linked by more than their taking place within the same decade-- in a 2011 interview, Gposling called the ladies "two of the greatest girlfriends of all time" and said that he hadn't yet met anyone better.
Chris Evans and Jessica Biel
Could there possibly be a more early-2000s photo than Chris Evans-- rocking a Sean Jean sweater-- and Jessica Biel together at a PlayStation 2 event?
Back before Chris Evans had played either of his future Marvel movie characters and Jessica Biel was only just starting to be known as more than just "the girl from 7th Heaven," the young actors had a whirlwind romance that didn't survive their burgeoning film careers.
Evans recently claimed that he hasn't had a single bad breakup in his life, and that when he runs into Biel or any of his other ex-girlfriends, it's all smiles and hugs. Would we expect anything less from Captain America?
Macaulay Culkin and Mila Kunis
Of all the relationships on this list, this one is the longest.
At nine years, this might seem like a difficult relationship to classify as "forgotten."
The fact of the matter is that Macaulay Culkin and Mila Kunis chose to remain fairly private about their relationship and managed to never let it overshadow their careers.
While it might be easy to make a joke about whether Culkin even still had a "career" to be overshadowed in the 2000s, to hear Kunis tell it, he was indeed still extremely famous during their 2002-2011 relationship, initially even more than her.
Kunis says that it was difficult for the pair to appear together in public, but not because people recognized her, even though she was then the star of a top-rated sitcom-- it was mostly because of Culkin's fans stopping them for autographs and pictures.
Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz
When people think about Tom Cruise's love life, there are generally two main people that come to mind-- Katie Holmes, his most recent marriage (and source of a lot of interesting talk show behavior)-- and his 10+ year marriage to actress Nicole Kidman, which was one of Hollywood's most famous pairings in the '90s.
That said, Cruise wasn't single between his two marriages. He had one fairly long-term relationship with another celebrity that is often forgotten about. From 2001 to 2004, Tom was romantically linked to his Vanilla Sky co-star Penelope Cruz.
As with most of his relationships, his connections to Scientology are said to have been a huge factor in the capsizing of the Cruise/Cruz love boat.
Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Esposito
Jennifer Esposito has been in a number of movies but is primarily associated with television, most notably her long-term stints on Blue Bloods and NCIS. She also spent a whopping four months as the wife to a pre-Guardians of the Galaxy, pre-The Hangover Bradley Cooper in 2007.
To hear Esposito tell it-- which she does, at length, in her autobiography Jennifer's Way-- there were multiple red flags she ignored about Cooper from the beginning but she gave him a shot anyway, eventually finding him to be "arrogant" and a "master manipulator" and claims she wasn't even particularly attracted to him physically. Ouch.
For Cooper's part, he chose to take a much more diplomatic approach to discussing the dissolution of the marriage, simply telling Howard Stern, "It just wasn't right... things happen."
Nicolas Cage and Lisa Marie Presley
Nicolas Cage is the kind of guy who wears his fandom loud and proud. Born Nicolas Copolla-- nephew of famed director Francis Ford Copolla and cousin to Sofia Copolla-- Nicolas dropped his original surname in an effort to make his own way in Hollywood without the aid of his famous family, opting for "Cage" after Marvel's Luke Cage. In 2005, he had a son with current wife Alice Kim, whom he named Kal-El as inspired by his love of Superman.
Cage is also a lifelong Elvis Presley fan, which he manifested in part by marrying the King's daughter, Lisa Marie Presley.
It would be the second celebrity marriage for both, him previously wed to Patricia Arquette and her infamously being married to Michael Jackson.
Alas, their relationship was not long for this world, with their messy divorce proceedings lasting even longer than their two years of marriage.
Wilder Valderrama and Mandy Moore
The youngest couple we will be discussing in this list, pop star Mandy Moore was just 16 when she started dating That '70s Show's Wilder Valderrama, who was 19. The two-year relationship kind of came and went without much public fanfare, and since then, Mandy has gone on to become a celebrated actress who is currently on the award-winning This Is Us, while Wilmer's highest-profile role in recent years has been on Netflix's From Dusk Till Dawn.
The actor would later brag to Howard Stern of being Moore's first and make crude comparisons between her and apple pie. Moore said she was shocked and hurt by his false comments, especially given the two were good friends following their split. Luckily for Valderrama, Moore seems to be of the forgiving sort, as the two are apparently back on good terms since the whole gross ordeal.
Jamie Dornan and Keira Knightley
Jamie Dornan first truly broke through to mainstream audiences in 2015 when he landed the role of Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades movie franchise. On the flip side, Keira Knightley was only 18 when she played the lead female role in the first installment of the massively successful Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, instantly making her a worldwide household name.
It's precisely because of Knightley's already-existing fame-- and Dornan's then-lack of it-- during their relationship that Dornan to later recalled how dating the popular young actress prepared him for both fame and for being hounded by the paparazzi.
Dornan said he didn't envision ever being as famous as she was.
He wouldn't be for awhile, but he's certainly there now.
Moby and Natalie Portman
While we tried to limit this list to actual relationships-- short as some may have been-- rather than brief flings and single-summer love affairs, some examples of the latter were too good to leave out. Such is the case with the brief tryst between electronic music superstar Moby and Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman.
The pair's "relationship" went by in such a blink that this photo of them backstage with The Roots is the only one that seems to exist that shows them together. What is fascinating about the "fling," as Moby himself refers to it, is that it put him on the receiving end of a lot of "nerd wrath" as Portman was then hot off her role in the Star Wars prequels.
As Moby explained, "You can't date Luke Skywalker's mom and not have them hate your guts."
Orlando Bloom and Kate Bosworth
In another example of two different geek fandoms coming together by way of a courtship, Orlando Bloom of Lord of the Rings fame, dated former Lois Lane, Kate Bosworth in the early-2000s.
Reportedly it was the bad influence of Orlando's LotR co-stars that led Bosworth to kick Legolas to the curb.
A source claims that she was getting tired of Orlando spending so much male bonding time with his Rings co-star Sean Bean, and finally got fed up after a particularly long night of supposed debauchery and decided to end things with him.
It apparently didn't help that early that same evening, while attending the Golden Globes together, Bloom reportedly spent most of the evening hanging out with another famous co-star-- Pirates of the Caribbean's Johnny Depp-- instead of his date.
Lenny Kravitz and Nicole Kidman
Not only is it surprising that hardly anyone outside of their personal inner circles know that they were even a couple until after the fact, but musician Lenny Kravitz and actress Nicole Kidman were even so far along in their relationship that they had gotten engaged with almost nobody finding out about it.
Following Kidman revealing their "secret" relationship-- 14 years after it had ended-- in 2017, Kravitz decided to open up about it as well, calling Nicole "amazing" and revealing that the two had remained friends since their break-up.
Kravitz also said that, when Kidman began working with his daughter, Zoe, on Big Little Lies, it was actually a reunion for the two ladies as they had spent personal time together during his and Kidman's relationship-- and said how thrilled he was that the series was an excuse for the three of them to hang out together again.
Tom Green and Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore started young as America's sweetheart, with her role in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, before going a bit wild as a teen. Tom Green is an off-beat Canadian comedian who is known for his odd-ball supporting roles in comedy films.
The unlikely marriage-- to the surprise of nobody-- lasted only a year, but it's still hard to believe it ever happened to begin with.
It was the second of Barrymore's three marriages while Green has yet to marry again.
Barrymore currently stars in Santa Clarita Diet on Netflix. Green has focused more on his stand-up comedy in recent years.
Marilyn Manson and Evan Rachel Wood
Some 2000s pairings are hard to wrap our minds around. Few have been more baffling to the world than the relationship between actress Evan Rachel Wood and shockrocker Marilyn Manson.
Even though Wood's film career contained a few darker roles at the time, she still seemed to be an odd fit for Manson, with his unusual goth/rock style.
Recently reflecting on the controversial relationship, Evan-- who was 20 at the time and 18-years Manson's junior-- explained, "I was craving danger and excitement." She maintains that she doesn't regret dating the rock star, and is appreciate of everything she learned from him.
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Did we miss any other forgotten relationships from the 2000s? Let us know in the comments!