celebrity

'I was at a low point.' 10 celeb couples who called off their weddings really close to the big day.

Hollywood marriages aren’t exactly known for their longevity. 

Britney Spears and Jason Alexander only managed 55 hours, and Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman only made it to the nine-day mark.

But there are some Hollywood couples who never even made it that far. Here are 10 couples who got engaged, planned their big day, then called it off at the very last minute. 

To get into the mood, watch the trailer for Runaway Bride here. Post continues below. 


Video via Paramount Pictures

Katie Holmes and Chris Klein.

Katie Holmes and Chris Klein were an iconic early 2000s duo. The pair got together in 2000 when they both were just 21, and by the end of 2003 they were engaged.

While no official date for the wedding had been set, the pair ended their engagement in 2005 after they’d already started making wedding plans. 

They blamed distance for their relationship ending, but shortly after, Holmes began dating Tom Cruise and they got engaged just two months later. 

Image: Getty

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Julie Roberts and Kiefer Sutherland.

Ironically, the star of Runaway Bride was one herself prior to being cast in the film. 

Eight years before the 1999 film hit cinemas, Roberts left fiancé Kiefer Sutherland just two days before their wedding day. 

Roberts had previously called off her last engagement to Dylan McDermott to be with Sutherland. 

Their relationship lasted through cheating rumours and substance abuse issues from Sutherland, however it was not meant to be. 

The day of the wedding, Sutherland was instead seen moving out of Roberts’ home and Roberts was seen on a date with his best friend Jason Patric.  

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Image: Getty

Billy Bob Thornton and Laura Dern.

This is a wild one.

Jurassic Park’s Laura Dern and Billy Bob Thornton were together for three years from 1997 to 2000. 

The pair were serious with each other and even engaged and yet in May 2000, Thornton married Angelina Jolie in Las Vegas. 

Dern revealed to Talk Magazine via ABC that it all happened while she was away working on a film.

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"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," Dern said to the magazine, "It's like a sudden death. For no one has there been any closure or clarity."

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Kat Von D and Jesse James.

After his divorce from Sandra Bullock in 2010, Jesse James found love with Kat Von D. The pair were engaged and had planned a summer wedding when everything fell apart. 

After claiming their breakup was mutual, Von D later revealed the truth, speaking to US Weekly. 

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"Today I encountered the 19th girl to add to the list of people Jesse cheated on me with during this last year," Von D revealed. 

James had previously been publicly exposed for cheating on Bullock. 

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Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. 

We know they got the happy ending they deserved but their past was a choppy one. Ben Affleck and JLo were constantly in the limelight and it cost them their wedding - at least the first time around.

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After three years of dating in the early 2000s, they announced their engagement and a wedding date was set.

But very close to the big day, it was all called off.

The pair ironically couldn’t see a future together with Lopez ready to settle down and Affleck unprepared to give up his bachelor lifestyle. In 2022, the couple reunited and married.

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Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt began dating in 1995, and by 1996 they were engaged. Their relationship was kept quite private and there are multiple rumours as to just how far into their wedding planning the pair got before breaking up.

Some say they had only just begun to prepare whilst others reported that they had set the wedding date and the dress had been bought.

Either way, by 1997, the engagement was over. 

Paltrow has since blamed herself for their relationship ending, putting it down to her youth and inexperience. 

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Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris.

With a 61 year age difference, Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris’ engagement was problematic from the start. 

After 11 months dating, the elderly Playboy entrepreneur Hefner proposed to the Playboy playmate in 2010. 

The pair were all set for a lavish wedding at the Playboy Mansion in early 2011 but Harris broke it off. 

"I called it off because I didn't think it was the right thing for me to do," Harris told Ryan Seacrest, via Us Weekly. Harris decided that Hefner’s lifestyle was no longer for her.

Despite Crystal's claims, the pair ended up getting married later in 2011 and remained so until Hefner passed in 2017. 

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Big Sean and Naya Rivera.

When any Glee star goes through heartbreak, their fans feel it trifold and that’s what happened when Naya Rivera’s wedding to rapper Big Sean was called off. 

The pair began dating in 2013 and were due to be married the following year. Then Big Sean broke off the engagement. 

It wasn’t until Rivera’s memoir was published that fans found out what went down between them.

According to the Glee star, the pair had been fighting a lot and Sean had been travelling intensively when she found out he no longer wanted to be with her.

Apparently Rivera, having a key to his house, went to visit him and found a young woman on his couch who she claimed in her book was Ariana Grande.

Rivera also revealed in her book she found out about her own breakup on the Internet: "Not only were we no longer getting married, but apparently we weren't even together anymore."

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Courteney Cox and Johnny McDaid.

In another JLo/Ben Affleck moment of the right person, wrong time. Courteney Cox and Johnny McDaid got engaged in 2014, soon after her divorce from David Arquette was finalised. 

Speaking to Ellen on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2015, Cox was over the moon about her upcoming nuptials and spoke of her daughter Coco's excitement. 

"I was gonna hire a wedding planner, but apparently she wants to do it," Cox joked on the show. 

But later that year, after rumours surfaced the couple couldn't agree on where to live, the engagement was called off. 

The couple got back together in 2019. 

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Speaking to Ellen again, Cox said, "He’s not my fiancé. We were engaged to be married, but now we’re just together," she explained. "We broke off our engagement, and he moved to England, then we got back together, and it’s actually better than it was before."

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Mariah Carey and James Packer.

Mariah Carey and billionaire James Packer got engaged in 2016 and yet by 2017 the relationship was in tatters and it seemed like it had been a mistake for both parties. 

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“I was at a low point in my personal life… She was kind, exciting, and fun. Mariah is a woman of substance. She is very bright. But it was a mistake for her and a mistake for me,” Packer revealed in a personal statement. 

The couple were that close to the big day, that Carey had already purchased her $250,000 Valentino wedding gown for the ceremony. 

Image: Getty

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