Top 20 Most Shocking Celebrity Breakups of 2023

For a very brief period, the actor, musician and celebrity diver added “missing person” to his resume. On April 13, 2023, the legally embattled former Nickelodeon star Drake Bell was reported missing in the Daytona Beach area amid concerns about his well being. He was found the same day. Bell and his wife Janet Von Schmeling had announced their separation back in January; she filed for divorce a week after the April incident. To a casual observer, it seemed like something out of a mystery series for a minute. Let’s just say it wasn’t the typical industry breakup.

The way their romance began reads like a showbiz fairytale. Maren Morris and Ryan Hurd were country singer-songwriters collaborating on a song for Tim McGraw in 2014. Soon after, they fell in love and were married in 2018. Morris gave birth to their son in 2020, and credited Hurd’s support with helping her through her postpartum depression. However, Morris filed for divorce in October, 2023. It seems like it took many fans by surprise. Morris and Hurd seemed like a match made in musical heaven. Their hit song, “Chasing After You,” gave fans a glimpse of their love story in the field that brought them together.

The “White Lotus” actor made plenty of headlines with his coming-out narrative and subsequent whirlwind romance and marriage to hairstylist Chris Appleton. They announced their relationship, got engaged, got married, and filed for divorce all in the same year. Though they teased their relationship with an Instagram photoshoot in February, and didn’t confirm anything until Appleton’s appearance on “The Drew Barrymore Show,” as you do. With a marriage officiated by Kim Kardashian and a live performance by Shania Twain, who would have thought they’d be done within months? Appleton filed for divorce in November, after only six months of marriage.

Although the Canadian pop-punk rocker was a staple of the 2000s, she still finds herself in the limelight for her music and her personal life from time to time. Avril Lavigne’s relationship with Mod Sun wasn’t just romantic. They recorded a song together and he co-produced her album “Love Sux”. Their 2022 engagement made headlines, but reports of their breakup in February 2023 got a bit awkward. Mod Sun’s spokesperson expressed confusion over the development, saying the engagement was still on as far as they knew. Their breakup got even more coverage when Lavigne was spotted with rapper Tyga around the same time - a relationship that ended within a few months.

The “Pose” star has never shied away from being open and honest about his life. When Billy Porter sits down for an interview, you usually get gold. But his amicable separation from longtime partner and husband Adam Smith was announced with a brief, straightforward message. Given what little we had seen of their relationship, Porter and Smith seemed like a great match. Porter credited Smith with co-creating his iconic “geek chic” look for his “Kinky Boots” era. The pair created an eyewear brand together at one point. Porter insists that he’ll always love his ex, but is excited to start his next chapter.

This couple first met in 2010, and after less than a year of dating, they married. Just shy of their 12th anniversary, they released a joint statement that they’d made the “difficult decision to divorce.” There was no drama, just two people who’d reached the end of the road and decided to take separate paths while doing what’s best for their family. Witherspoon, who’s previously divorced, told Harper Bazaar that she felt more in control of the narrative this time as she and Toth could share the news in a way that suited them. She also said that using her voice helped her feel more connected to others in the same boat.

The beloved actress and host began dating Darius Jackson in 2021, and the two had a child together in February 2023. All seemed well until Jackson publicly shamed Palmer’s outfit at an Usher concert in July, arguing that she’s a mother, and shouldn’t dress in such a manner. It created a firestorm the likes of which are… actually pretty common on Twitter, but it was a very public sign that all was not well. A month later, the two broke up. Palmer would later be granted full custody of their child and a temporary restraining order against Jackson, amid allegations of abuse.

Richard Lawson is a steady character actor in film and television, having appeared in some of the biggest shows of the past 50 years. Tina Knowles is an icon in her own right. She shepherded her daughters’ singing careers before launching her own brand. The businesswoman and fashion designer began dating the “Poltergeist” actor in 2013, though they had known each other for many years. They married in 2015, but announced their divorce eight years later in July 2023. The story took a weird, if hilarious turn when Lawson’s not safe for work Twitter likes were uncovered. While it probably had little to do with the divorce, the timing was not ideal.

Mid-2023, the singer announced that he and his husband, Jwan Yosef, had decided to go their separate ways after six years of marriage. Like many modern-day love stories, the couple’s relationship began on social media in 2015, and they went on to get married in 2018. While their split was a shock to many, the couple had reportedly already decided to separate before the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course, this meant that the exes were able to process this change in their family dynamic away from the public eye. They later released a joint statement voicing their commitment to continue co-parenting their kids.

The engagement between the “Queer Eye” star and an advertising executive made headlines in 2022. Their many coupley posts and thirst traps took the Internet by storm. However, as of November 2023, Antoni Porowski and Kevin Harrington had halted wedding plans and were announcing a parting of ways. A representative for Porowski, whose culinary creations on the Netflix reboot made him a household name, said that the wedding planning actually made the pair realize their unsuitability. Some say living together is a true test of a relationship, but maybe surviving the wedding planning is the real deciding factor.

Unlike many of the couples on this list, so far at least, these two have had to withstand the gauntlet of a separation on reality TV. They’re far from the first couple to go through this, but their breakup is one of the saddest. As featured on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” Kyle Richards and Mauricio Umansky seemed to have a pretty solid relationship. They complemented each other well, even when they caught strays from castmates and random psychics at dinner parties. But allegations of infidelity, and relentless gossip that Kyle was in a relationship with singer Morgan Wade after appearing in Wade’s music video, made a heartbreaking situation even messier.

In May of 2021, Grande announced her marriage with adorable Instagram photos. However, to paraphrase the singer, we thought she’d “end up with Dalton, but he wasn’t a match.” Rumors swirled that the relationship was over when Grande was spotted at Wimbledon without her wedding ring. Some speculated that she had already begun romancing her “Wicked” co-star, Ethan Slater, while others claim the rumors are unfounded. When it comes to the reason for Grande’s separation with Gomez, some pointed to their vastly different lifestyles as a source of tension. Grande is a global superstar, while Gomez lives more of a low-key life as a real estate agent. It’s possible they simply realized they weren’t compatible long-term. Whatever the reason, after just two years of marriage, they filed for divorce.

Reality couples come and go, but this Atlanta housewife and the former NFL player’s entire early love story played out before the cameras on Bravo. The only bumps their romance experienced seemed to come courtesy of Zolciak’s “Real Housewives” co-stars. However, in May 2023, the two announced their separation after eleven years of marriage. But the drama didn’t stop there. With headline after headline, the couple made each other’s behavior public knowledge. Despite this war in the press, and an incident that involved police intervention, the couple announced the divorce was off in July. Then, Biermann refiled in August. The whiplash is real.

We see Hollywood romances come and go. Some burn brightly and flame out quickly. This one was so established it was hard to imagine it would ever end. Meryl Streep and her husband of over 40 years, sculptor Don Gummer, were a stalwart presence in Hollywood. They were such a low-key, tabloid-avoidant couple that many of us didn’t even notice the two were last publicly seen together at the 2018 Academy Awards. However, the couple dropped a bombshell on us in October when she revealed that she and Gummer had separated six years ago.

Britney first met model and actor Sam Asghari on the “Slumber Party” music video set. The couple went public in 2017, announced their engagement in 2021, and married in June 2022. But by summer 2023, it was all over. Asghari was the first to publicly address the split, asking the public to be “kind and thoughtful.” Later, Britney also took to social media to acknowledge the news and ask for privacy. There have been many rumors about when things turned sour, why, and who’s at fault. In addition, it’s been said that the couple has barely spoken since their separation.

Say it isn’t so! The shockwaves hit hard when this once-golden couple dropped the bombshell of their separation in September 2023. They’d been together for 27 years, often appearing side-by-side at public events and gushing over the love and strength of their relationship. Their journey began on the set of the 1995 Australian TV miniseries “Correlli,” and from then on, they seemed inseparable. But here’s the twist: reportedly beneath what the public saw, cracks had quietly emerged during the pandemic and deepened amidst the ongoing Hollywood writers’ strike. In their statement, Jackman and Furness asked for privacy and vowed to prioritize their family. Who could have foreseen this chapter in their story?

It’s apparently thanks to Jesse Tyler Ferguson that these two met. It was a whirlwind romance, with the couple dating for a year and tying the knot in 2015. Throughout their relationship, they seemed inseparable, often appearing on red carpets together and gushing about each other in interviews. But alas, what we see in public isn’t always the case behind closed doors. After seven years of marriage, the couple released a joint statement announcing their divorce. Reports cited “different attitudes” for their split and said they eventually simply “stopped wanting to be together.” Both parties have since been spotted without their wedding rings.

Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner’s fairytale romance ended (on the surface) rather abruptly in September of 2023, following a four-year marriage. The couple, together since 2016, wed in a surprise Las Vegas ceremony in 2019 and have two daughters together. Their Hollywood-shaking separation fueled rampant speculation, but ultimately, all we have are rumors. Turner’s subsequent custody filings to have her children returned to England made their amicable divorce appear to be a little more complicated than it initially seemed. As of November, they’ve reached a temporary joint custody agreement, but the split has left tons of invested fans heartbroken.

Swift’s love life and heartache have always been very public— partly because it’s inspired a fair share of her music. Still, she decided to keep her relationship with British actor Joe Alwyn mostly away from the spotlight, making fans root for this “Love Story.” However, news broke in April 2023 that the two had split up. Some speculated that it had been over two weeks earlier, when Swift replaced the hopeful “Invisible String” with the gut-wrenching “The 1” during her Eras world tour. Swift’s brief relationship with The 1975 frontman Matty Healy also drew headlines before she and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce began dating around September.

Every gritty detail of this “Vanderpump Rules” cheating scandal was broadcast, combed over, analyzed, commented on, and criticized. For several seasons, Ariana Madix and Tom Sandoval were the show’s most talked-about couple. During filming for the show’s tenth season, when Sandoval’s affair with Madix’s friend and castmate, Raquel Leviss, was revealed, the whole thing spilled out on camera. Given just how much lying, backstabbing, and drama was involved, it’s hard to believe it was real. The ensuing scandal, dubbed “Scandoval,” and the backlash that followed, had us all absolutely glued to our screens.

Which of these celebrity breakups truly surprised you? Sound off in the comments.