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From Cher to Billy Ray Cyrus: 9 celebrity couples with big age differences.

Age-gap relationships. They're fascinating things.

As if celebrity relationships weren't pervy enough, trying to understand how two people make their relationships work when they're from very different times is just rather... fascinating.

And with Cher backing her relationship with her boyfriend of one year — who is 40 years her junior — it seems the love actually isn't dead in Hollywood.

So we decided to take a look at the love stories of nine celebrity couples with large age gaps.

Side note: Remember when these celebs dated? Post continues below.


Video via Mamamia.

Cher and Alexander 'A.E.' Edwards.

Cher and Alexander Edwards. Image: Getty.

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Singer Cher, 77, and 37-year-old music producer Alexander Edwards briefly met during Paris Fashion Week in 2022 before reconnecting over text when a mutual friend handed him her number. 

"It was really shocking, because people just don’t give out my number," she told Vanity Fair. "I had been telling all my friends, 'We’re too old to go out with really younger men, and I will never fall in love on text.' So I did what I said not to do!"

What makes their relationship fascinating is their 40-year age gap – something Cher understands completely.

"No matter what happens, I love being with him," she said of Edwards. “He makes me laugh, and we have fun.

"What I learned is that it’s never too late. If you wrote out all the statistics, you would go, 'Well, this is doomed.' But we’ve been together a year, and if it was just a year, it would’ve been worth it. I’ve had the best time."

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Billy Ray Cyrus and Firerose. 

After a year-long engagement, singer Billy Ray Cyrus is married to Australian musician Firerose. 

The pair wed earlier this month, bringing the news to Instagram.

"10/10/23 will always be the beautiful, joyous day that our two souls united as one in holy matrimony," they wrote. "It was the most perfect, ethereal celebration of love we could have ever imagined."

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The couple continued, "For both of us to hear the preacher say, 'Billy Ray and Firerose Cyrus... I now pronounce you husband and wife' that was the sacred moment our new forever began. Long Live Love!"

Cyrus, 62, first connected with Firerose, 34, back when he was on the set of the Disney Channel series Hannah Montana 12 years ago. 

"I loved doing that show," he remembered. "There's a couple old pine trees on the lot that look like Tennessee. [My late German Shepherd] Tex and I would go out there in the middle of the day and he'd take care of his business and we'd stretch and I'd think how much I missed Tennessee," he said, as reported by PEOPLE

"On that given day, Firerose came out of the front door. There was almost a moment of, I don't know, recognition. I was like, 'This girl's a star.'"

They reconnected in 2021 to team up for a musical collaboration and soon fell in love.

Chris Pratt and Katherine Schwarzenegger.

After dating for about a year, Chris Pratt, 41, and Katherine Schwarzenegger, 31, got married in June 2019.

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The pair officially started dating a month after Pratt divorced his ex-wife, Anna Faris, and in August 2020, they welcomed their first daughter, Lyla Maria, together.

Image: Getty.

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Jay-Z and Beyonce.

Beyonce was 18 years old when she first met her future husband, Jay Z, who is 12 years her senior.

"There was no rush — no one expected me to run off and get married," Beyonce told Seventeen.

"I really don’t believe that you will love the same thing when you’re 20 as you do at 30, so that was my rule. Before the age of 25, I would never get married."

So, after eight years, the pair got married in 2008, and now share three kids together.

Image: Getty.

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Sam Taylor-Johnson and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

Sam and Aaron Taylor-Johnson first met on the set of Nowhere Boy, a film about John Lennon that Sam was directing, and Aaron was starring in.

At 19 years old, Aaron fell for 42-year-old Sam. He later proposed to her "a year to the minute" after they met.

"As soon as we finished [filming], he told me he was going to marry me. We had never been on a date, or even kissed," the director told Harper's Bazaar.

"A year to the minute after we met, exactly one year to the minute, I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me," the actor added.

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Months later, the pair announced they were expecting their first child.

Image: Getty. 

Over the next two years, the pair welcomed two daughters, Wylda Rae and Romy Hero, and got married in 2012.

The pair, who share a 23-year age gap, have now married together for 11 years.

Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas.

Catherine Zeta-Jones met her now-husband Michael Douglas 22 years ago. At the time, Catherine was 28 and Michael was 53.

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The two actors were attending the Deauville Film Festival; Douglas was promoting his film A Perfect Murder, while Zeta-Jones was promoting her movie The Mask of Zorro. They were introduced by mutual friends, Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith.

"I looked at her, and I said, 'Catherine, I’m going to be the father of your children,'" Douglas told The Hollywood Reporter in 2019.

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Two years later, he was.

Since then, the couple have been married for 23 years and share two children.

You can read more about Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas' 20-year-relationship here.

Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi

Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi first met in 2000, although they didn't start dating until 2004. 

"[I knew Ellen was the one] when I first laid eyes on her, but it took me three years to actually tell her how I felt about her because I was on Ally McBeal at the time and I was not living as an openly gay person," de Rossi told Oprah Winfrey in 2005. 

"I was closeted and very, very afraid that if I talked about being gay, it would be the end of my career, so I wasn't about to date the most famous lesbian in the world."

The couple share a 15-year age gap, with de Rossi now 50 years old and DeGeneres 65 years old.

Image: Getty. 

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Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds 

Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds met on the set of Green Lantern in 2010, although both stars were already coupled up at the time.

Reynolds, then 33, was married to Scarlett Johansson, and Lively, at 22, was dating her Gossip Girl co-star, Penn Badgley.

Within the year though, Blake and Ryan – now 36 and 46 respectively – had separated from their partners. They officially began dating in late 2011.

Image: Getty. 

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The pair have been married for 13 years, and share three daughters together.

Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra

Way back in 2016, a 25-year-old Nick Jonas slid into a 35-year-old Priyanka Chopra's DMs, and after many texts exchanged, they met up a year and a half later.

"I’m hearing from a few mutual friends that we should meet," Jonas said at the time.

That same day, Chopra responded with, "My team can read this. Why don’t you just text me?"

After two months of dating, the couple got engaged in 2018.

Image: Getty. 

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In an interview with InStyle in 2018, Chopra said: "People gave us a lot of shit about [our age gap] and still do. I find it really amazing when you flip it and the guy is older, no one cares and actually people like it."

This article was originally published on May 8, 2021 and has since been updated with new information.

Feature Image: Getty.

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