There are certain celebrity couples that just pique our interest more than others.
One of the best examples of this is the short yet fascinating romance between Penn Badgley and Zoe
Kravitz . Yep, that's right. Most of you might not have even known that they were together.
So that's why we're going to take a deep dive into their love story
and tell you everything we know about their romance.
Penn and Zoe started dating around 2011. It's unclear how exactly they first met,
but oddly enough, Penn credits Gossip Girl for their meeting.
In an interview, the actor shared, "Gossip Girl has given me
everything that I have now. It gave me the opportunity to live in New York
and to be in a position to get this role. It also put me in New York City so I could meet Zoe."
So while we don't have the nitty-gritty details of who asked who out,
it's pretty clear that Penn was grateful that they crossed paths. It was roughly a year after
Badgley had broken up with Blake Lively that he and Zoe walked down the streets of New York City,
hand in hand. Zoe herself had also recently come out of her relationship with Michael Fassbender .
Even though Penn credited Gossip Girl for where he is today in his career,
it turns out that Zoe wasn't even a fan of the show.
When the show released its final episode in 2012, Kravitz admitted that she and Badgley had
no plans to watch it together. However, they did celebrate his time on the show coming to an end.
Zoe was also very excited to gush over Penn's first role after Gossip Girl,
which was in the film "Greetings From Tim Buckley." She shared,
"I'm just really excited for people to see what he can really do." She also added that he
was coming home that weekend to surprise her so that they could get some quality time together.
Badgley and Kravitz maintained a relatively private relationship for the two years they
were together. Even though they shared an apartment in New York City before parting ways,
they didn't publicly discuss the details of their life together.
As it turned out, Penn also spent a lot of time with Zoe's legendary father, Lenny Kravitz.
It seemed that they all got along really well, and we all know that there's nothing
better than getting a father's approval. In fact, they even went to concerts together.
Penn shared during an interview on The Ellen Degeneres Show, "We get along,
we talk music. He took me to Harlem to see this little jazz show in the back of a church.
It was just shitty fluorescent lights and a small stage piano, but this band tore it up."
The couple did their best to maintain their privacy over the two years of their relationship.
However, we do know that they lived together in an apartment in New York City.
While they didn't dish out a lot of details about their romance,
Penn made it pretty clear that when he fell in love with Zoe, he fell hard and fast.
In a 2013 interview, Badgley described what it was like falling in love with Kravitz
while he was filming the Jeff Buckley biopic 'Greetings From Tim Buckley'.
He confessed, "At that time I was falling madly in love in a way that was changing me and opening me
up." He also added that it was something that he needed, and it felt like a "cosmic intervention."
Penn explained that his love for Zoe was a "real, true and earth-shattering" kind of love.
Adding, "I really was going through it — helped me be as good as I could be."
Unfortunately, as earth-shattering as their love was,
it sadly didn't last. The couple split after about two years together. While the couple
didn't comment publicly about their breakup, an insider revealed that "it wasn't a sad breakup."
The insider explained that their relationship "just wasn't working"
and that "it really did end on good terms."
Another insider close to the couple also shared that Zoe and Penn were "at two different stages
in their careers," and that "they just didn't have time for each other" anymore.
So perhaps it was their busy schedules that got in the way of their relationship.
As it turns out, just one month before their breakup, Penn sat down for an interview with
Ellen Degeneres, and he opened up about how he and Zoe managed their time apart.
The actor confessed, "There's definitely no secret. I'd say honesty is always the best policy.
There are always a lot of arguments — but even if honesty starts some, it avoids bigger ones."
He explained that being honest meant that you need to be honest with yourself
"about what you want and what you need,
and then be honest about what those things are with the person that you're with."
Penn also explained that as an actor, being in a relationship, he had this opportunity
to have something really exceptional because he didn't have a regimented schedule or lifestyle.
However, he confessed that it "can also be very warped."
He also admitted that it can be complicated for a relationship when you're an "object of attention."
From what we can tell about this interview,
it seems as though their busy schedules and career goals put a lot of pressure on their relationship
and caused the couple to bump heads more often as time went on.
Even though things didn't work out between Penn and Zoe, if there's one thing he got
to take from their relationship was that he got to experience his first great love. He also got
to learn a lot about what it takes to maintain a healthy relationship as a popular celebrity.
Just one year later, Penn met Domino Kirke, a singer, and doula to A-listers like Amy
Schumer . When they first started dating, Domino admitted that they weren't serious,
and she was more focused on raising her son, Cassius, who was five years old at the time.
She shared, "I was sort of getting used to being a single mom, maybe a
little too used to it." Adding, "I didn't think marriage was in the cards for us."
The couple kept their relationship pretty low-key over the next few years,
although Penn admitted that they even watched a few episodes of Gossip Girl together.
He confessed, "It must've been six months after we met.
She had never seen it, and that's the last time I can remember seeing an episode."
In 2017, wedding bells rang for Penn and Domino … twice! The couple first
said "I do" in an intimate Brooklyn courthouse ceremony in February,
with only close family and friends in attendance, including Kirke's famous sisters Jemima and Lola.
A few months later, the couple held a much larger ceremony and reception in Upstate New York,
attended by celebrity friends like Debra Messing, Zac Posen, and Heidi Klum.
At first, the couple avoided sharing the details about their marriage with the public. But after
their second ceremony, Kirke confirmed their union on Instagram by making a dad joke about their duel
weddings. "You only get married twice, once," Kirke wrote in a since-deleted Instagram post.
A year after they tied the knot, Badgley opened up about his relationship during an interview,
describing his connection with Kirke as "divine love."
He gushed, "Domino and I very much had a romantic beginning,
and I think that you discover in marriage that what sustains a marriage for decades — there are
less and less people who can tell us this — but I think it has something to do with divine love."
In a rare interview about their family life,
Kirke opened up about Badgley taking on a fatherly role in her son's life,
calling him a "really great stepdad" to now 13-year-old Cassius. "He doesn't have to be
'dad' so he can have more fun with him. It's really nice … he takes care of him really well."
In 2020, Kirke announced that she and Badgley were expecting their first child on Instagram.
She shared a celebratory photo of her baby bump. In the since-deleted post,
she also revealed that the couple had experienced two miscarriages in a row prior to that pregnancy,
which was especially difficult to navigate as a doula for other expectant mothers.
Domino captioned, "I stopped trusting my body and started to accept the fact that I was done."
She ended her touching note by addressing her new addition directly. "You're already
teaching us how to stay in the day in a way we've never had to, little one. Thank you."
In September that year, Kirke announced that she and Badgley had welcomed their
first child — more than a month after she actually gave birth. The singer took
to Instagram to share a photo of her placenta on a piece of paper. "His heart shaped home."
While they kept their son's name a secret for quite some time,
it was later revealed that they named him James.
As for Zoe Kravitz, she wed fellow actor Karl Glusman in 2019 — however, she filed for divorce
just 18 months later. Currently, the actress has been dating Channing Tatum since 2021,
and the pair seem to still be going strong.
Interestingly enough, Kravitz was spotted hanging out with Badgley's sister-in-law,
Lola Kirke, back in April 2021, so it would appear as though Zoe and Penn
really have managed to remain friends since their split. Not to mention they've both
moved on in their love lives and seem to be very happy.
While Zoe and Penn were an unlikely couple, their romance was clearly an epic one for them both.
Badgley learned a lot of lessons that he took into his marriage with Domino,
and he's now a husband, father, and step-father. And even though Zoe's marriage didn't work out,
her romance with Channing is blossoming, and we wish them all the best!
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