While celebrities may live in gorgeous mansions and walk star-studded red carpets, they can also have celebrity crushes just like us. And while many of them may want to play coy and keep their crushes under wraps, many of them have been open about who they just can’t stop thinking about. In fact, over the years, many stars, including Paul Bettany, Ariana Grande and Jason Momoa, have opened up about having a crush on someone they ended up dating. After all, if you’re a celebrity with a celebrity crush, the chances of something actually happening between the two of you get way higher.
“I actually got married to my celebrity crush,” Joe Manganiello once said about his ex-wifeSofía Vergara. Talk about love at first sight!
The same was true for Momoa and his ex-wife Lisa Bonet, whom Momoa had a crush on since he was eight years old (!). “Ever since I was like, eight years old and I saw [Lisa] on the TV, I was like, ‘Mommy, I want that one,'” Momoa said in an appearance at The Late Late Show with James Corden in 2017. When you know, you know!
To find out more stars who made their dreams come true by dating their celebrity crushes, scroll below!
Paul Bettany
Paul Bettany has been open about his admiration for Jennifer Connolly over the years. “I was like a stalker,” the WandaVision star told Live in 2018. “We got married very quickly because I thought I had a three to six-month period before she sees through the accent.”
In another interview, when asked about his first film crush, Bettany gushed over his wife yet again. “Mine’s embarrassing,” he said. “Jennifer Connolly in Labyrinth.”
Bettany and Connolly met in 2001 and ended up tying the knot and welcoming their first child in 2003. The pair went on to welcome their second child in 2011.
Hailey Bieber
While it seemed that the whole world had a crush on Justin Bieber in the 2010s, it seems like his wife, Hailey Bieber, was one of them.
“I was never a superfan, of him or of anyone,” she told Vogue in 2019. “It was never that crazed, screaming thing. I didn’t think about it in any kind of way except for the fact that he was cute. Everybody had a crush on him.”
Justin and Hailey, who first sparked dating rumors in 2014, got married five years later in 2019.
Katie Holmes
Years before becoming Mrs. Cruise, Katie Holmes was reportedly gushing about her major crush on Tom Cruise. “She knew everything about him,” Holmes’ co-star Mary Beth Peil told Daily Beast. “She said, ‘I have had a crush on him since I was 15, and his posters were on the walls of my bedroom.’ She could not stop talking about Tom Cruise. This was way before they got together, but she was certainly ready for him.”
Holmes and Cruise then met and started dating in 2005, got married in 2006 and ended up splitting in 2012.
Jason Momoa
Jason Momoa’s crush on his ex-wife, Lisa Bonet, started when he wasn’t even a teenager yet. “Ever since I was like, eight years old and I saw [Lisa] on the TV, I was like, ‘Mommy, I want that one,'” Momoa said in an appearance at The Late Late Show with James Corden in 2017. “Like, ‘I’m going to stalk you for the rest of my life and I’m going to get you.'”
“I was a full-fledged stalker, I didn’t tell her until we had two babies,” he joked. “It would be creepy and weird.”
Momoa and Benet, who started dating in 2005, married in 2017 and announced their split in 2022.
Machine Gun Kelly
In another meant-to-be couple, Machine Gun Kelly also talked about his major crush on Megan Fox before they even met. According to his cover on GQ in 2021, Kelly was a teenager when he got the Decepticon logo from Transformers and hung a poster of Fox in his bedroom.
“It was the GQ poster, right?” the singer asked his friend. “It was from her GQ shoot. So that’s some full-circle s–.”
The two eventually met years later in 2020 and got engaged in January 2022.
Melissa Fumero
Unlike most stars in this list, Melissa Fumero landed her all-time celebrity crush without even knowing it at first.
“When I was 13, Mariah Carey had this music video, “Honey,” and there was this hot guy that frolicked with her on the beach at the end of the video,” the Brooklyn Nine-Nine star told The Late Late Show with James Corden. “And I was obsessed with that hot guy.”
“10-ish years later,” the actress is dating a guy, aka her now-husband David Fumero, where he talks about the music video. “I went to the bathroom in my apartment and had a silent freak out,” she said of her reaction. “And then I married him.”
The two have been married since 2007 and share two kids together.
A-Rod
A few years ago, when A-Rod and Jennifer Lopez were happily engaged, the former baseball player reacted to a video of him in 1998 on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon where he’s totally crushing over the “On the Floor” singer. When asked what his dream date would look like, Rodriguez answered “Jennifer Lopez.” “Hopefully you can get me a date with her,” he continued.
“That means that dreams actually do come true, America,” Rodriguez reflected.
Rodriguez and Lopez split in 2021.
Brad Paisley
When he was just 20 years old, in 1991, country star Brad Paisley took an ex-girlfriend to the movies to watch Father of the Bride and later found himself pining over the star of the movie, Kimberly Williams, instead.
“That became my first long-term relationship, which ended badly when I moved to Nashville,” he told CNN of the relationship with his ex. “Years later the sequel came out and I woke up one day and thought to myself, ‘That’s not who I belong with,’ not the girl I took to the movie. You know who I belong with? The girl in the movie.”
The pair married in 2003 and have welcomed two sons, William Huckleberry and Jasper Warren, since.
Ariana Grande
Back in 2018, Ariana Grande opened up about her love-at-first-sight moment with her then-fiancé Pete Davidson.
“I left his writers’ room when we were writing skits and stuff for the show, and my tour manager was in the hallway,” Grande said of her first time hosting Saturday Night Live at The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, per People. “And I’m not a crushy person — like I don’t have crushes on people, I don’t know — but I left and I, like, jokingly said to my tour manager, ‘I’m marrying him. 100 percent. I’m literally marrying him.’”
“We never exchanged numbers or anything,” Grande continued. “But I had the biggest crush in the whole world on him the whole time, like forever. Like, my friends used to make fun of me for it, all that stuff.”
The pair ended their engagement after four short months in 2018.
Joe Manganiello
Joe Manganiello was another star who was very open about his longtime celebrity crush, Sofía Vergara. In one interview with People, for example, Manganiello called the Modern Family star his ultimate celebrity crush and the two began dating shortly after, per E! News.
“I had forgotten I had said that,” Manganiello reflected in an appearance at On Air With Ryan Seacrest. “And when the magazine came out, by that time, we were seeing each other and when I got the magazine and opened it up and read it, I forgot I said that. I started laughing.”
“She was laughing at me,” he remembered. “She thought that I was crazy for having said that out loud or said it in the magazine, but you know, I guess it worked.” It did indeed!
The pair first met in 2014, tied the knot in 2015 but sadly called it quits in July 2023.
Phoebe Bridgers
Like so many of us, singer Phoebe Bridgers was crushing on Paul Mescal after watching Normal People and she wasn’t afraid to show it. “finished Normal People and now I’m sad and horny oh wait,” Bridgers tweeted at the time, per Cosmopolitan. Mescal then tweeted back “I’m officially dead.” Bridgers then replied, “Nooo don’t die you’re so talented aha.” And that was the beginning of their love story!
The pair ended up dating and got engaged two years later in 2022 before calling it quits a few months later.
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