What would you like best about being a celebrity? One of the best things about celebrity life is that you have fans all over the world. And you might think that would make it easier to find your special someone.
However, just being famous doesn’t guarantee you a “happily ever after.” In fact, some of the world’s most famous celebrities thought they found someone, and then things ended in a messy divorce.
Who are we talking about? Here are the celebs whose divorces haunt them to this day.
Katy Perry
Remember when Katy Perry was married to Russell Brand? Their 2010 marriage seems like a lifetime ago at this point. But that brief marriage left some serious scars on Perry that it took a decade to heal.
After Brand dumped her via text message and never interacted with her again, Perry fell into a major depression. As she told Vogue India in 2020, “I became depressed and I did not want to get out of bed.” Continuing, she said, “In the past, I had been able to overcome it, but this time something happened that made me fall down too many flights of stairs. I had to really go on a mental health journey.”
Surprisingly, her current partner Orlando Bloom was the one challenging her to face her demons. And when she attended a weeklong retreat focusing on mental health, she began to heal. Ultimately, Perry lays major credit for this on Bloom’s shoulders. “I’ve never had a partner who was willing to go on an emotional and spiritual journey like Orlando.”
Just when you thought Bloom couldn’t be more of a catch!
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Johnny Depp
What’s the one thing worse than a nasty private divorce? A nasty public divorce, of course!
Johhny Depp divorced Amber Heard in 2017. This led to many news stories about their contentious relationship, and the British tabloid The Sun called Depp a “wife beater” in 2018. Depp sued the paper, but this led to a major legal battle in London that aired Depp’s dirty laundry.
In November 2020, Depp lost his libel case when a judge ruled that 12 out of 14 of Amber Heard’s assault allegations were legitimate. This seriously hurt Depp’s image, and he was asked to step down from the Fantastic Beasts franchise.
Time will tell if his career bounces back. But one studio head confided to The Hollywood Reporter that in the eyes of Hollywood, “You simply can’t work with him now. He’s radioactive.”
It looks like Depp’s 2017 divorce may haunt him for the rest of his life.
Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods’ divorce wasn’t as nasty as Jonny Depp’s divorce. But it may very well have done similar damage to his reputation.
Back in 2009, the National Enquirer shocked the world by revealing that Woods had been cheating on his wife Elin Nordegren. This caused more reporters to start digging into his life and discovering that this was not his first affair. In fact, Woods was a serial cheater!
Eventually, Woods publicly apologized to Nordegren. And she ended up getting a cool $100 million in a divorce settlement. As for Tiger Woods, revelations about his adultery continue to haunt his life and career.
However, public sympathy is with him following his devastating car crash in February 2021, in which he suffered multiple leg injuries. CNN went so far as to declare, “Tiger Woods made us realize it’s OK to love an imperfect athlete.”
RELATED: Where Tiger Woods’ Ex-Wife Elin Nordegren Is Now
Mariah Carey
Ever hear that advice about not pursuing romantic relationships at work? As Mariah Carey can attest, it’s almost never a good idea!
Carey married the head of Sony Music, Tommy Mottola, in 1993. Considering that her debut album was one of Sony’s best-selling works, it looked like this was a match made in heaven. But the two of them separated in 1997 and fully divorced by 2000.
Since then, Carey hasn’t minced words about the relationship. In an interview with Cosmopolitan, she compared herself to a “child bride” and claimed that Mottola was too concerned with her public image. “There was a conscious effort to keep me as this all-American, whatever that means, girl. It was very controlled. There was no freedom for me as a human being.”
If that’s not bad enough, she detailed even more in her 2020 memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey. Carey’s book blames her marriage and other factors for giving her PTSD. “I work on my emotional recovery daily,” Carey revealed.
Ben Affleck
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner were married for 10 years before separating, and eventually divorcing. And in a 2020 interview with The New York Times, Affleck called his divorce “the biggest regret of my life.”
Affleck revealed that his drinking problem made his marriage suffer, which in turn made his drinking worse. “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 said.
He went to rehab in 2018, and now tries to face his demons every day. “I have certainly made mistakes,” he said. “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.”
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Denise Richards
It’s no wonder Denise Richards is still haunted by her divorce from Charlie Sheen. After all, Sheen’s erratic behavior when they were together made headlines all around the world and ultimately lost Sheen his cushy gig starring on Two and a Half Men.
The final days of their marriage were very harrowing for Richards, and she opened up about these days on an episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. She called those days “toxic” and “very dark.” She summed it up like this: “It is such a toxic road. It brings up so much anxiety.”
As for life after divorce? Sheen is seemingly behind on his child support payments. The Blast reported that on a Housewives episode, Richards revealed that Sheen owed her $450,000. And when The Blast reached out to Sheen, he said that Richards was “a coward” and insisted “the truth will prevail.”
We just have one question: will the prevailing truth come with a side order of tiger blood?
Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt divorced way back in 2005. Nonetheless, that divorce haunts Aniston for the misconceptions around it that have been played up in the media.
At the time of the divorce, various media outlets pushed a narrative that Aniston was a victim and that Pitt had done permanent damage to her life. Even two years ago, Aniston could count on headlines to breathlessly claim that “Brad Pitt Ruined Jennifer Aniston’s Life.”
She summed all of this up nicely for InStyle back in 2018. “The misconceptions are ‘Jen can’t keep a man,’ and ‘Jen refuses to have a baby because she’s selfish and committed to her career.’ Or that I’m sad and heartbroken. First, with all due respect, I’m not heartbroken. And second, those are reckless assumptions.”
In reality, she has had a very successful career since the divorce and some very fulfilling romances. Aniston is doing just fine, but you’d never know based on the years of terrible headlines.
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Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow always does things her own way. But when decided to change how we perceive the idea of divorce, she turned herself into a major punchline.
In 2014, she made a post on her lifestyle website Goop announcing her divorce from Coldplay singer Chris Martin. Or, as Paltrow called it, their “conscious uncoupling.” The phrase instantly became the stuff of memes and punchlines, with many saying Paltrow was being overly pretentious about the whole thing.
Does Paltrow regret using the phrase “conscious uncoupling”? She name-dropped the term in a 2020 essay she wrote for Vogue, so maybe she’s still hoping it takes off.
But, like the adjective “fetch,” that’s just never going to happen.