In every Hollywood era, there's no shortage of headline-making romances.
From Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall's legendary passion, to the birth of Brangelina on the
set of an action flick, these are the most scandalous love affairs in entertainment history.
Michelle Pfeiffer and John Malkovich
1988's Dangerous Liaisons may have been the film that forever typecast John Malkovich
as a conniving villain, and during production, there were some real-life parallels going
on behind the scenes.
While Malkovich's character was trying to seduce Michelle Pfeiffer's character, the
two actors began an affair that would cause the end of Malkovich's marriage to Glenne
Headly.
After their split, Headly apparently called Malkovich, quote, "the root of all evil."
Although Malkovich and Pfeiffer's affair ended shortly after it started, it was a miracle
it even began, according to Malkovich.
As he later told Rolling Stone,
"It's hard to believe Michelle Pfeiffer ever said hello to me.
Not that she's not memorable, God knows.
But I sort of blocked it out.
What I'm trying to say is, when I think of the other person, I don't think of me as involved
with them.
They're uncorrupted by me.
As if they were never troubled by my existence."
"It's beyond my control."
"LIAR!
LIAR!"
Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton
After Billy Bob Thornton won a Golden Globe in 2017 for his work on Goliath, Twitter went
wild commenting on what appeared to be an awkward moment between him and Laura Dern.
It might've been nothing more than one actor walking behind another, but the history between
these two is hard to ignore, as they were an item between 1997 and 1999.
At the time, Thornton was quoted by Men's Journal as saying,
"I'm now happily involved with someone who's my best friend."
But by the end of the year, they were no longer together.
So what happened?
Apparently, Angelina Jolie happened.
Thornton and Jolie worked together on 1999's Pushing Tin, and at some point along the way,
that sparked up a relationship; they married the following year.
For Dern, it may have been a bit too sudden to be a coincidence.
Speaking to Talk Magazine, she said,
"I left our home to work on a movie, and while I was away, my boyfriend got married, and
I've never heard from him again.
It's like a sudden death.
For no one has there been any closure or clarity."
Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe
When the tabloids spotted Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe holding hands during the filming of
Proof of Life, it created an enormous scandal.
Besides the fact that both actors were huge stars, Ryan was still married to Dennis Quaid
at the time.
Before the film was released, Ryan and Crowe tried to avoid prying eyes, but the rumor
mill forged on.
They ultimately confirmed their relationship by appearing in public together in July of
2000.
But Ryan insists that her failed marriage to Quaid wasn't because of Crowe or the scandal,
as she told W Magazine that the union had dissolved before the press caught on.
But that didn't stop people from talking.
There were questions about Ryan's sweetheart public image and if it would wear off because
of this affair.
Even she had to question her status in the public eye.
At the time, she confessed to W Magazine,
"I found myself in a hotel lobby in London a few months ago, thinking, all of a sudden,
'So this is what it feels like to be the Scarlet Woman."
Feeling incapable of beginning another long-term relationship, Ryan ended things with Crowe
not long after.
Billy Crudup and Claire Danes
Billy Crudup and Mary-Louise Parker were together for seven years after they met while performing
on Broadway.
But in 2003, when Parker was seven months pregnant, they split.
The next thing anyone knew, Crudup was with Claire Danes.
Crudup and Danes had just finished filming Stage Beauty, a film about actors who have
an affair.
The tabloids had a field day with the scandal.
Danes, who was just 24 at the time, was particularly unprepared for the drama, which she spoke
about years later on an episode of The Howard Stern Show.
"That was really hard.
I didn't know how to not do that."
"Right."
"I just was in love with him.
And needed to explore that and was 24."
"Heaven have mercy on me."
"Good girl.
Keep going."
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie
The alleged escapades of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith
dwarfed most celebrity gossip of the past 50 years.
Jolie was a veteran of a similar scandal with Billy Bob Thornton, while Pitt was married
to Jennifer Aniston at the time.
The setting was ripe for controversy.
While Jolie insists that no physical affair took place before Pitt's split from Aniston,
an emotional connection was formed on the set.
As Jolie explained to Vogue,
"Because of the film, we ended up being brought together to do all these crazy things, and
I think we found this strange friendship and partnership that kind of just suddenly happened.
I think a few months in I realized, 'God, I can't wait to get to work.'"
When filming wrapped in 2004, they left the set as quote, "very, very good friends," according
to Jolie.
The following year, Pitt separated from Aniston and was then officially with Jolie.
And thus began the Adventures of Brangelina.
"So it speaks.
But does it dance?"
LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian
In 2009, LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian were filming the Lifetime movie Northern Lights
when news broke out of an alleged affair between the two after they were spotted together at
a restaurant.
At the time, Rimes was married to backup dancer Dean Sheremet, and Cibrian was married to
model Brandi Glanville.
The bond that Rimes and Cibrian formed during filming carried on after the cameras stopped
rolling.
Eventually, they both divorced their spouses and got married to each other in 2011.
Rimes later got emotional discussing the affair during an interview with Giuliana Rancic.
She insisted that nothing happened between her and Cibrian outside of love scenes for
the film, but she still expressed some regret with how the whole thing played out.
"I've never felt the hurt so deep, and I've never felt the love so deep."
"All at the same time?"
"Yeah, I never knew that could happen."
Ali MacGraw and Steve McQueen
In 1972, shortly after they were cast in The Getaway, Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw started
a relationship that wore out the ink on tabloids across the country.
MacGraw was a rising star who had recently married producer Robert Evans.
McQueen was Hollywood's iconic bad boy.
MacGraw later told Vanity Fair,
"It was very, very passionate, and dramatic, and hurtful, and ecstatic.
It was pretty much a wipeout for both of us.
But I think it's safe to say it would have been impossible not to fall in love with Steve."
After the film, MacGraw divorced Evans, and married McQueen, and even paused her career
for him.
It wasn't until after their 1977 divorce that she returned to the big screen with the 1978
film Convoy.
"Steve McQueen is dead for 30-some odd years.
I always thought he'd leave me.
I mean it was this absurd…I don't know what I thought.
Except that I wasn't real."
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor
The casting of Elizabeth Taylor in the title role of 1963's Cleopatra was not without some
controversy.
She hadn't yet lived down her reputation as a homewrecker from an earlier affair with
Eddie Fisher, and some people at Twentieth Century Fox were unsure if the risk was worth
the price.
They ultimately moved forward with casting Taylor, but it turned out that their fears
were grounded.
Even with Fisher on location in Rome, Taylor and her co-star Richard Burton, who played
Mark Antony, started one of the most talked-about affairs of the century during production.
While taking a break from filming in 1962, Burton and Taylor were snapped lounging together
aboard a yacht.
The published photos sent the public and the paparazzi into a frenzy for more.
The scandal was inescapable.
Members of the press followed them at every turn, even posing as extras to get inside
information.
The Vatican even publicly condemned the relationship.
By 1963, their relationship was public and the film was finally released.
Early in 1964, mere days after she divorced Fisher, Taylor and Burton were married.
They divorced in 1974, remarried in 1975, and then divorced again in 1976.
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall are now remembered as one of Hollywood's greatest
couples, but their romance wasn't without its victims.
For one, Bogart was married to actress Mayo Methot when he started shooting To Have and
Have Not with Bacall in 1944.
As Bacall recalled to TCM, she was so nervous during her first scene with Bogart that she
couldn't stop shaking.
It was his patience with her that initially caught her attention.
Their off-screen chemistry soon took on a new life that led to changes in the script
that leveraged their blossoming relationship.
Despite his feelings for Bacall, Bogart apparently decided to try and work things out in his
struggling marriage.
Methot was battling alcoholism and made a failed attempt at rehab before she and Bogart
finally split.
During this time, the private relationship between two of Hollywood's biggest stars made
for some incredible gossip.
In 1945, Bogart and Methot divorced, and then Bogart and Bacall married.
"You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve?
You just put your lips together and blow."
Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini
The love affair between Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini began with a simple letter,
in which Bergman wrote,
"Dear Mr. RosselliniI, I saw your films Open City and Paisan, and enjoyed them very much.
If you need a Swedish actress who speaks English very well, who has not forgotten her German,
who is not very understandable in French, and who in Italian knows only 'ti amo,' I
am ready to come and make a film with you."
From this came the suggestion to make the film Stromboli.
As Bergman and Rossellini pitched the movie to producers and secured financing, their
relationship grew.
They traveled together throughout Italy prior to shooting, much to the dismay of Bergman's
husband, Petter Lindstrom.
According to the Bergman biography As Time Goes By, Rossellini seemed open to creating
a scandal while shooting the film.
He was happy to be photographed holding hands with the beautiful actress, and he even gave
the press inside knowledge of her broken marriage.
Before Stromboli was finished shooting, Bergman was pregnant with Rossellini's child, and
the truth of the affair was all over the American airwaves.
She was ostracized from the American film industry and wouldn't return to favor for
more than seven years.
Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner
Frank Sinatra was no stranger to affairs.
He was even arrested on charges of adultery in 1938.
The famous crooner married his first wife Nancy in 1939 and they had three children
together.
But in 1948, he and actress Ava Gardner started what would become a legendary affair.
It wasn't until 1950 that the world found out about them, as Sinatra was labeled a cheater
and Gardner a home-wrecker.
While Gardner was vilified for her role in the affair and considered a gold digger, the
scandal hurt Sinatra's career most.
According to the book Sinatra: Behind the Legend, his shows started suffering, he lost
his recording contract, and his voice was failing.
In 1951, after Nancy gave him the divorce he sought, he married Gardner.
Their union, however, would be marked with great challenges.
They battled publicly, and Gardner had two abortions.
Their relationship ended in 1953, with the divorce finalized in 1957.
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