Celebrities Who Broke Up but Still Had to Work Together

Grace Gavilanes, Stephanie SengweSat, August 22, 2026 at 10:25 AM UTC

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Credit: Taylor Hill/FilmMagic; Slaven Vlasic/Getty; Charley Gallay/Getty

Breaking up is never easy to do, but we imagine it’s exponentially harder if you still have to act convincingly in love, on camera, for an army of invested fans.

That’s just one of the awkward post-breakup experiences that celebrity exes undergo, and it’s not uncommon: Plenty of stars (including Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, Florence Pugh and Zach Braff and Nina Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder) find themselves still professionally bound to their former partners even after things had ended romantically, whether that’s continuing to portray an onscreen relationship or having to promote a project together. And while some situations worked out well, others were understandably awkward.

Check out the celebrities who had to work with their exes post-breakup, including Madelyn Cline and Chase Stokes, whose series Outer Banks debuted its final season Aug. 20.

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Madelyn Cline & Chase Stokes

Credit: Jackson Lee Davis/Netflix

The Outer Banks co-stars met before they even began filming their hit show in 2019, and by the time the Netflix series aired in April 2020, fans were speculating that the two were an item.

The pair would confirm their romance in June 2020 and shared some sweet moments of their love publicly. However, after dating for a year and a half, Cline and Stokes decided to call it quits, though they had to continue to play a couple in subsequent seasons.

“Mads and I have been working together now for 30 episodes, and we made a promise to each other before we even started dating that the work was always going to come first,” Stokes, 30, told Entertainment Weekly after their breakup.

Ahead of the fifth and final season, which premiered Aug. 20, Cline told The Hollywood Reporterthat they’d worked through the awkwardness together. “There were moments when it was difficult, absolutely,” she said. “But once the dust kind of settled, we were able to just revert to the friendship that we always had. At some point, you look at each other and you’re like, ‘Are you ready to stop being miserable? Because I’m ready.’”

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Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck

Jennifer Lopez and Ben AffleckCredit: Andrew H. Walker/Shutterstock

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck didn’t let news of their divorce hinder their working relationship when it came to making Kiss of the Spider Woman.

Rumors that their marriage was on shaky ground first surfaced in May 2024. At the time, the couple, who wed in 2022, were mid-production, as Affleck’s company, Artists Equity, helped produce the film.

Though the singer admitted she “barely” managed to pull off her performance, she told CBS Sunday Morning, “The movie wouldn’t have been made if it wasn’t for him and Artists Equity. I will always give him that credit.”

The film wrapped in June 2024, and two months later, on Aug. 20, 2024, Lopez filed for divorce from Affleck. The divorce was finalized in January 2025.

It seems there is no bad blood between the exes, as Ben Affleck made a surprise appearance at the New York premiere of the film on Oct. 6, and the two posed for pics together, with Ben praising her “incredible” performance in interviews.

(There had been some precedent for this experience before: The couple had also previously starred in a film together, Jersey Girl, which was released two months after they split for the first time in 2004.)

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Zach Braff & Florence Pugh

From left: Florence Pugh, Zoe Lister-Jones, Molly Shannon and Zach BraffCredit: Stephen Lovekin/Shutterstock

After making A Good Person together while they were dating, Florence Pugh and Zach Braff went on a promo tour for the film post-split. However, Braff, who directed the film, only had praise for his ex and the movie’s star.

“I’m just in awe of her talent and I said, ‘I wanna write this for Florence. What I’m writing is really gonna be challenging, and she’s incredible,’” he told Entertainment Tonightin March 2023.

The actor previously told Collider, “People say she’s maybe the best actress of her generation. I think she’s one of the best actresses working. This performance she gives is unbelievable.”

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Olivia Rodrigo & Joshua Bassett

Credit: Disney

The High School Musical: The Musical: The Series costars never officially confirmed their relationship — or that the songs they both released in 2021 were about their split. But plenty of people speculated about the meaning behind the lyrics, and the two didn’t deny or confirm anything. Many people believed there might have been some on-set drama, but the two were all smiles when walking the red carpet for the show’s Season 3 premiere in 2022.

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Lili Reinhart & Cole Sprouse

Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty

People were ‘shipping Lili Reinhart and Cole Sprouse pretty much the moment they made their debuts as Betty Cooper and Jughead Jones on Riverdale in 2017.

And fans weren’t imagining that chemistry —the two began dating, but kept things quiet until they walked the Met Gala red carpet together in 2018 and seemingly confirmed their relationship.

Rumors of splits and reconciliations pursued the two for a few years, and in Aug. 2020, Sprouse would officially confirm they called it quits in an Instagram post.

“Lili and I initially separated in January of this year, deciding to more permanently split in March,” the former Disney star wrote. “What an incredible experience I had, I’ll always feel lucky and cherish that I had the chance to fall in love. I wish her nothing but the utmost love and happiness moving forward. All I’ll say about it, anything else you hear doesn’t matter.”

The pair continued in their roles on Riverdale for several years; the show’s seventh and final season is aired in 2023.

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Katie Holmes & Joshua Jackson

Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson on ‘Dawson’s Creek’Credit: Columbia TriStar International Television/Getty

In a 1998 interview with Rolling Stone, a 19-year-old Katie Holmes could barely contain her love for Dawson’s Creek costar and then-boyfriend Joshua Jackson.

“I’m just going to say that I met somebody last year,” she told the publication. “I fell in love, I had my first love, and it was something so incredible and indescribable that I will treasure it always.”

The two began dating in 1998, before their characters, Joey and Pacey also became an item on the small screen. They would break up in 1999, though they remained coworkers until the show wrapped in 2003 — concluding with their characters ending up together.

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BJ Novak & Mindy Kaling

Credit: Gilbert Flores/Getty

They say life imitates art, and in the case of BJ Novak and Mindy Kaling, that is sort of true.

The pair stole America’s hearts as the chaotic coupling that was Kelly Kapoor and Ryan Howard on The Office. In real life, their relationship was similar.

“No one, including us, ever really knew, ‘Is this dating? Is this not dating?’ We were never really dating, we were never really not dating,” Novak told Vulture. “We didn’t know. No one knew. All you’d know for sure was that you’d always find one of us next to the other, even if we weren’t getting along.”

Though Kelly and Ryan ended up running off together on the show, Novak and Kaling had a more mature end to their on-and- off “situationship.”

“In real life, I think we just essentially grew up and it became more of a transition,” said Novak.

The two remain besties and have been each other’s dates to various high profile events. Novak is also the godfather to Kaling’s three kids, Katherine Swati, Spencer Avu and Anne.

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Blake Lively & Penn Badgley

Credit: Jamie McCarthy/WireImage

“We were constantly professional, to be honest, and we should both pat ourselves on the back because anything is complicated in that way ... and we handled it,” Badgley said of working with Lively on Gossip Girl after calling it quits in 2010.

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Kaley Cuoco & Johnny Galecki

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Their characters may have gotten hitched on The Big Bang Theory, but exes Cuoco and Galecki had already ended their IRL relationship in 2010 after two years of dating.

“Massive doses of mutual love and respect, mostly,” Galecki said during an appearance on The View when asked about how he and Cuoco maintained a healthy working relationship despite splitting up. “It’s not easy but with those two ingredients, pretty much anything is possible. We’re dear, dear friends.”

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Camila Mendes & Charles Melton

Credit: Amy Sussman/Getty

Another Riverdale couple that had to keep things professional post-break up are Camila Mendes and Charles Melton, who play Veronica Lodge and Reggie Mantle on the show. In 2024, Mendes confirmed on Armchair Expert that she and Melton had been on-and-off over the course of the show, and that their chemistry meant their characters were often in a romantic relationship even when things were rocky between the two actors.

“It was like, any time we started to hook up off set and knew that something was brewing, our characters would start dating. But they didn’t know. No one knew. The writers just would naturally make it happen,” she recalled.

Having to work together through a difficult breakup was “hard and it’s emotional ... it’s the worst,” she said, though she thought she was “good at keeping things professional.”

“It ended very peacefully and ‘wish you all the best,’” she said, adding that by the seventh and final season, everyone was on good terms and appreciative of the experience together. “But it still hurts, no matter what.”

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Milo Ventimiglia and Alexis Bledel

Credit: Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty

Milo Ventimiglia dated Alexis Bledel for about four years while the two were playing love interests on Gilmore Girls, and though their characters split, they shared scenes together, including in the 2016 Year in the Life Netflix revival. (“I just know that [creator Amy Sherman-Palladino] wanted me to look lovingly in the direction of Rory, played by the great Alexis Bledel, and I did,” he told PEOPLE of whether Jess and Rory might reunite.)

Ventimiglia, who also dated and broke up with the late Hayden Panettiere while the two were on Heroes, shared that dating a coworker isn’t something he’d want to attempt again.

He told Mr. Porter, “[I’d] never do it again. There are things that happen to you in your life that shape who you are. Everything I’ve been through from jobs to friendships to partnerships, everything has built me to who I am. You learn from it. You learn a better way of doing things.”

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Joey King & Jacob Elordi

Credit: Jesse Grant/WireImage

The Kissing Booth costars Jacob Elordi and Joey King dated for about a year before they put the kibosh on their relationship in 2018. King was honest in saying that working with her ex wasn’t the easiest thing to do, especially with the knowledge that people would be watching the two onscreen with curiosity about their relationship.

“No one’s thinking to themselves, ‘That was easy,’ because it wasn’t. I’m sure people will analyze every movement and every detail. And you know what? Let them,” she told Cosmo in 2020. “But at the end of the day, I was just thrilled to be Elle Evans again.”

So how did she power through those awkward moments? Said King: “Elle Evans needs her Noah Flynn, and whatever that means for my personal life, I’ll do anything to make sure the story of my character who I care about so much is complete.”

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Zendaya & Jacob Elordi

Credit: FilmMagic

After splitting from King, Elordi was also rumored to have been in a relationship with Euphoria costar Zendaya. Though they never confirmed they were an item, several sightings led fans to believe the two were definitely together.

In 2019, the two were pictured on vacation in Greece together. Then, in January 2020, the pair was seen getting cozy at the American Australian Arts Awards. Just a few days after that, Elordi and Zendaya were caught kissing while out and about in SoHo.

The apparent romance fizzled out as quietly as it started sometime in 2020, but the two remained costars on the show (until their, spoiler, tragic deaths in the final season) and Elordi sent a big congrats to his former flame when she won her first Emmy. “Congratulations Captain,” the Australian-born actor wrote on his Instagram Story. “Bravo.”

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Xolo Maradueña and Hannah Kepple

Credit: Vivien Killilea/Getty

The two hit it off on the set of Cobra Kai, but called it quits before the show did.

When confirming that the two were dating to MEAWW in 2020, Kepple said, “Season 1, we were actually friends, a little flirty and then we started talking after season 1, and it clicked,” adding that while they didn’t often film together, “I love watching his character a lot and not being part of the same storyline helps.”

According to PureWow, the two had posted photos together to Instagram, but in 2022, fans noticed that they’d been deleted from each other’s social media accounts and they haven’t addressed their relationship since.

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Jennifer Lawrence & Nicholas Hoult

Credit: Dave M. Benett/Getty

The X-Men franchise served as an important milestone (both personal and professional) for Lawrence and Hoult: They met on the set of the hit film and dated for a few years before ending their relationship in August 2014.

“These movies had been my life for so long and they had to come first in everything,” the Oscar winner said in 2015. “I was also in a relationship with somebody for five years and that was my life. So my life was this person and these movies and we broke up around the same time that I wrapped those movies.”

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She continued: “Being 24 was this whole year of, ‘Who am I without these movies? Who am I without this man?’ “

Hoult explained how he and Lawrence made it work at work post-split, telling ELLE, “It’s like going back to school after the summer holidays. The reality of [the X-Men franchise] is there are lots of characters, so everyone was together for brief periods, but not every day for four months.”

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Sophia Bush & Chad Michael Murray

Credit: Michael Brannigan/AP

Bush and Murray were on-and-offscreen love interests on the set of One Tree Hill and tied the knot in 2005— but five months later, the two called it quits. The actress has chalked the brief union up to being “22 and stupid” but stressed that the two tried to make the best of it after they went separate ways, despite the fact that producers were “really deeply inappropriate to both of us ... they ran TV ads about it. It was really ugly.”

“People can call it whatever they want. They can say it’s strength, they can say it’s pride, they can say it’s professionalism. You can put a positive or a negative skew on it,” she said on the Drama Queens podcast. “But I was always going to put Brooke Davis ahead of everybody and everything else. Nothing mattered to me but being honest for her.”

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Rachel Bilson & Adam Brody

“One of the all time greats!” Brody wrote in his Reddit AMA of working with Bilson on The O.C. The pair dated for three of the four years they worked together on the show, and while their relationship didn’t last in real life, their characters — Seth Cohen and Summer Roberts — tied the knot at the end of the series.

The two also remain friendly, and Bilson has shared her appreciation for their relationship.

“Because of what the show was and how young we all were, going through it with someone experiencing the same thing and having that kind of support was really awesome,” Bilson told Nylon in 2021.

“I’m actually grateful that I did have it. It was definitely a unique experience, and I don’t think anyone else could have really understood it had they not been in it, so for that reason, it was super helpful and supportive, and I have total gratitude for the whole experience.”

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Jennifer Garner & Michael Vartan

Credit: Frederick M. Brown/Getty

Before she married now ex-husband Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garnerbriefly datedAlias costar Michael Vartan between 2003 and 2004; they kept working together until 2006.

And while their relationship was short-lived, the two remain close friends — but just friends, Vartan pointed out in 2018 when asked if they might ever reconcile. “I don’t think so,” he said. “If it didn’t work once, there’s a reason it didn’t work.”

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Jennifer Lopez & Marc Anthony

Credit: Lester Cohen/WireImage

Despite splitting up in 2011 after a decade of marriage, Lopez and Anthony still went forward with their global talent TV competition, Q’Viva! The Chosen, in 2012, and recorded a Spanish album together in 2016.

“We’re just meant to be in each other’s lives on different levels,” Anthony previously said of working with his ex. “This is a long story, it’s not a short story ... Marriage was just one chapter ... And kids are another. We’ve got each other for life.”

Lopez echoed Anthony’s sentiments in a 2017 interview: “At first I was like, ‘We’re good with the kids and everything, but if we start working together, are we gonna start going at each other again?’ And it’s been awesome. Honestly, I think it’s even helped our relationship.”

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Nina Dobrev & Ian Somerhalder

Credit: Getty

The Vampire Diaries costars continued working together on the hit show as onscreen love interests well past their 2013 breakup, and fans hardly noticed a blip in their onscreen affection; they even snagged the “Best Chemistry” trophy at the 2014 People’s Choice Awards.

“It’s a good thing it’s not awkward,” Dobrev joked as she and Somerholder accepted the trophy.

The former costars were on such good terms that Somerhalder’s wife, Nikki Reed, joined the pair at a farewell dinner for the final season of The Vampire Diaries. “I don’t think it’s weird at all, I think it’s great,” Dobrev said when asked if she found their friendship strange. “Why can’t everyone be friends? ... They are happy and so am I. What’s bad about that? I don’t see any problem with that.”

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Amanda Seyfried & Dominic Cooper

Credit: Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic

After meeting on set of the original 2008 hit Mamma Mia!, Seyfried and Cooper dated for three years before splitting in 2011. Seyfried spoke about how common on-set romances can be to Elle, saying “You’re put in a situation where you have to make out with each other. It’s easy for things to get carried away.”

So when the two reprised their roles as newlyweds in the sequel, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, Seyfried admitted that her husband and Last World costar, Thomas Sadoski, wasn’t exactly thrilled about their romantic onscreen reunion.

“I’d guess he assumed Dominic is in love with me the way he’s in love with me. And it’s just not the case, it’s sweet,” she said, adding, “I’d rather he be jealous than completely fine with it.”

So what’s her best advice for managing everyone’s emotions on set following a breakup?

“The number one, most important thing is setting boundaries. You can’t call each other by the pet names you have for them,” she told Elle in 2018. “It’s very strange having to not be intimate with someone you’ve had an intimate relationship with. It can be hard but you have to step back and be professional. Dominic and I have such a good relationship that it was easy.”

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Jennifer Aniston & Tate Donovan

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Fans of Friends would never be able to tell, but when Tate Donovan starred as Joshua Burgin, a love interest to Aniston‘s Rachel Green, he and the actress were actually in the midst of a breakup.

The two were introduced by a mutual friend in 1995 and while Donovan was apprehensive about being in another high-profile relationship — he had just ended things with Sandra Bullock — their chemistry was undeniable.

They would go on to be a serious item for two years, with The O.C actor becoming a frequent visitor on the Friends set.

However, when he was asked to be on the sitcom, emotions from the split were still fresh.

“I was just happy to be on the team. The only bummer was Jennifer and I were breaking up at the time,” he told Us Weekly in 2018. “And so that was tricky to sort of act, and act like we are just meeting each other, and falling in love, or whatever, interested in each other, when we’re sort of breaking up. That was just tough.”

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Kyle MacLachlan & Laura Dern

Credit: JB Lacroix/WireImage

Decades after their 1980s relationship ended, the actors found themselves filming a sex scene together for Twin Peaks: The Return. MacLachlandiscussed the unconventional reunion on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

“We had this scene that we had to do together — we both knew going in — which was going to require some nakedness on both our parts. It’s very funny because [director David Lynch] would sit down and say, ‘Okay, this is what we’re gonna do.’ He talks you through it, so you feel pretty comfortable,” he shared. “And then you sit down, and Laura and I were kind of like, ‘Okay, here we go.’ Welcome back, 25 years later…Yeah, it was weird. We had a couple of laughs for sure.”

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Dwayne Johnson & Dany Garcia

Credit: Jim Spellman/WireImage

Johnson and his producer ex have continued to collaborate on blockbusters since their 10-year marriage ended in 2007. “It’s not [easy],” he told E! about working together post-breakup at the premiere of Hobbs & Shaw, which Garcia executive produced. “For everybody out there, relationships aren’t easy, marriages aren’t easy, you gotta work at it.”

“You never sign up for divorce … And we started out as friends and through divorce we still remain friends, but that kind of stuff takes a lot of work,” the actor continued.

“A lot of times you see the glitz and the glamour of here in Hollywood and it’s a big premiere, but that’s the kind of sludgy stuff that everybody goes through. You gotta get your therapy and you got to go through it. But I always tell people and I always tell couples who are going through it — especially the dudes who seek out my advice who are like, ‘How did you do it?’ — I always say, ‘You gotta put in the work, and just remember that you were friends beforehand.’ Like, try to think about things like that, and think about your goals.”

Garcia and Johnson are parents to 24-year-old daughter Simone Alexandra Johnson.

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Naomi Watts & Liev Schreiber

Credit: C Flanigan/FilmMagic

Despite splitting in 2016 after 11 years together, Watts and Schreiber have remained on good terms. The stars’ dynamic is so friendly, in fact, that they even signed on for a film, Chuck, which saw them take on the roles of husband and wife.

“I remember the first day [of shooting] that she came out of the trailer in the leopard print with the fake boobs and the hair,” Schreiber told PEOPLE of working alongside his ex, adding that the experience was “a treat.” He added: “She just went for it. I just knew it was going to be fun.”

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Christina Haack & Tarek El Moussa

Credit: Jerod Harris/Getty

After seven years of marriage, the Flip or Flop hosts called it quits — keeping news of their dissolution private for months before going public in December 2016. In late January, a source told PEOPLE that Tarek and Christina “are very much committed and want to continue to work together and continue the show.”

These days, the couple is on such good terms that they happily coparent together, travel together with their new partners and even co-host a new HGTV show, The Flip Off, which also stars El Moussa’s new wife, Heather Rae El Moussa.

“The greatest gift I could ever receive is two women who believed in my vision and built it with me,” El Moussa said on Instagram while promoting a new season of the show. “I think we can all agree that I have good taste in women.”

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Cameron Diaz & Justin Timberlake

Credit: Dave Allocca/Startraks

Proof there was no bad blood following Diaz and Timberlake‘s 2006 breakup: The pair starred in 2011’s Bad Teacher together.

“It’s great,” the actress said of the experience. “Justin and I have always had a good laugh together, and to make a movie where we get to have a laugh together, and there really was no one else who was more perfect for this part.”

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Michael C. Hall & Jennifer Carpenter

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Two years before the end of Dexter in 2013, the costars — who were married from 2008 to 2011 while working on the show together — ended their union.

“Don’t try this at home,” Hall joked when asked how he and Carpenter make their professional relationship work after their divorce.

“The fact that Jennifer and I worked through whatever was going on with us personally and the way we did and maintained a commitment to telling this story was never in question,” he went on. “It was always what we needed and wanted to do.”

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Nikki Reed & Paul Mcdonald

Credit: George Pimentel/Getty

A few months after announcing her divorce from the American Idol alum in 2014 following a whirlwind courtship, Reed continued working on a music collaboration with her ex-husband. The pair ultimately released their post-breakup album, I’m Not Falling — a joint effort they began working on in the early stages of their relationship.

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Bella Hadid & The Weekend

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The Weeknd — real name Abel Tesfaye — and Bella Hadid were first linked together back in April 2015, when the “Starboy” crooner asked the supermodel to be in his video. The two would go on to date for a year and a half before going their separate ways in November 2016.

Shortly after, The Weeknd and Hadid still had to work together when he was the selected performer at 2016’s Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, in which Hadid was modeling.

Though they may not have had to spend as much time together as the other ex-couples, their brief interaction on camera was enough to get fans riled up. The two did reconcile, but it wasn’t until 2019 and they lasted a few months before saying goodbye for good.

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Maksim Chmerkovskiy & Karina Smirnoff

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Never one to bite his tongue, Maksim Chmerkovskiy did not mince his words when it came to speaking about his failed engagement to Karina Smirnoff back in 2009. “I feel completely betrayed,” the Dancing With Stars bad boy told PEOPLE at the time. “I don’t want to get into the specifics. Let’s just leave it at I’m done.”

Sources at the time claimed that the dancers simply couldn’t agree on starting a family. “Maks was ready to start a family and have children with Karina, and he came to realize that wasn’t really what she wanted,” a source told PEOPLE.

Things didn’t remain hostile between the former fiancés though. Chmerkovskiy and Smirnoff reunited in 2013 for Forever Tango, a strictly music and dance Broadway show.

“We’re good. We’re cool,” the Ukrainian-born choreographer told Extra TV. “We put our differences aside long before Forever Tango came around.”

For her part, Smirnoff kept it cool, even jokingly stating, “Obviously Maks and I have a very colorful history, but I think we both have moved past that. To be able to do a very passionate Argentine tango, you need that and we have plenty of material to pull from.”

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