Notable Celebrity Marriages That Lasted Less Than A Year
The recent news of actor Liam Hemsworth filing for divorce from his wife, singer and actress Miley Cyrus comes just 11 days after the couple announced their separation. Both pieces of news left fans devastated. The couple first met in 2009 on the set of The Last Song, where they played each other’s love interests. They were together for nearly a decade despite several breakups (one of which lasted three years). Their actual marriage lasted only eight months.
Hemsworth’s and Cyrus’ union now joins the long list of celebrity marriages that didn’t make it past one year. There are many similar reasons for the factors that break up long-term and short-term celebrity marriages. Such reasons include irreconcilable differences, domestic violence, the death of one person in the union, annulment, infidelity, etc.
Now, with that being said, here are 10 notable celebrity marriages that lasted less than a year:
1. Britney Spears and Jason Alexander:
Of all the celebrity marriages that lasted less than a year to make this list, the union between Pop Star Brittany Spears (on the left) and her childhood friend Jason Alexander (on the right) is by far the shortest one! The two wed in January 2004 at Las Vegas’s Little White Wedding Chapel. Spears wore jeans, a crop top, and a baseball cap for the ceremony. However, the union lasted 55 hours, as the next morning, the pop star told her mother (who was also her manager) and Spears’ team had the marriage annulled under the grounds that Spears “lacked [an] understanding of her actions, to the extent that she was incapable of agreeing to the marriage.”
2. Mario Lopez and Ali Landry:
The Saved By the Bell star and Extra host met Miss USA 1996 at Miss Teen USA 1998, which he hosted, and she was a commentator for. Lopez (on the left) and Landry (on the right) dated for six years (including their engagement during the summer of 2003) and got married on April 24th, 2004 in Mexico in front of 50 guests.
However, the newly-weds had the marriage annulled two weeks later after Lopez cheated on Landry at his bachelor party. Landry confronted Lopez after she found out when someone secretly snapped a photo and sent it to her sister. Their short union is always mentioned when the topic of short celebrity marriages is brought up. Lopez detailed how their marriage broke down in his 2014 memoir. Although both are now married to other people and have three children each, Lopez also revealed in his memoir how he never really loved his ex-wife in the first place.
3. Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries:
Kim Kardashian (on the left) has been married three times and her second marriage to NBA player Kris Humphries (on the right) is one of the most notable and shortest celebrity marriages ever. Kardashian and Humphries wed in August 2011 in a lavish wedding ceremony that was televised on the former’s reality show Keeping Up With The Kardashians. Just 72 days after saying “I do,” Kim K. filed for divorce from Kris on Halloween that year, citing “irreconcilable differences.”
While the divorce proceedings played out, Kim began dating her eventual 3rd husband Rapper Kayne West during April 2012, and on New Year’s Eve that year, West revealed that Kardashian was pregnant with their first child. All this happened while she was still legally married to Humphries. There was some drama with the announcement since Kim was still legally married to Kris at the time, by the law, Kris would be the presumed father of her child with West and could try to claim custody if he wanted to. Kim’s and Kris’ divorce wasn’t finalized until June 3rd, 2013 (which was 12 days before she gave birth to North, the first of her four children with West).
4. Nicolas Cage and Lisa Marie Presley:
The Oscar-winning actor (on the left) and the only child (on the right) of The King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley, wed on August 10th, 2002 in a secret ceremony in Hawaii. Their wedding date was also marked the 25th anniversary of Elvis’ death. This was Cage’s second marriage and Presley’s third. However, their union was short-lived as of three months later when Cage filed for divorce. Despite their 107-day marriage, the divorce wasn’t finalized until 18 months later in May 2004.
5. Judy Garland and Mickey Deans:
In her life, Judy Garland (on the right) married five times and had three children (one with the second husband and the other two with her third husband). Her fifth marriage, to Micky Deans (on the left), lasted from March 15th, 1969 to June 22nd, 1969 and comes out to be three months and seven days. Unlike the rest of the celebrity marriages on this list, the union between Garland and Deans didn’t end due to infidelity, both parties being drunk at the time of the union, or irreconcilable differences.
The marriage between the iconic actress and the musician and entrepreneur ended due to Garland’s untimely death. Deans found his wife dead on the bathroom floor in the home they were renting in London. Garland was 47 years old when she passed away and the cause of death was revealed to be due to an accidental overdose of barbiturates. Deans later moved to Cleveland after his wife’s death. He never remarried and later died of congestive heart failure on July 11th, 2003 at the age of 68.
6. Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Esposito:
Another one of the most notable celebrity marriages which lasted less than a year is the one between actors Bradley Cooper (on the right) and Jennifer Esposito (on the left). The two got married on December 30th, 2006. Just 122 days after saying “I do,” Esposito filed for divorce from Cooper, citing “irreconcilable differences”. Years after the marriage ended, Cooper revealed in an interview on Howard Stern’s radio show that his divorce from his ex-wife was mutual.
Based on this list of notable celebrity marriages that lasted less than a year, which ones (when it was first announced) surprised you the most? Let us know in the comments below!
Featured Image Source: https://people.com/movies/nicolas-cage-rollercoaster-romances/
I am currently a senior at The University of Miami. I will graduate in December 2021 with a major in Journalism and minor in Sports Administration.