Watching your favorite celebrity couples break up, separate or get divorced is hard. But splitting up when you’re in the spotlight? That’s even harder. And the past few years have seemed especially rough. We’ve seen some of our favorite couples call it quits, from down-to-earth sweethearts Anna Faris and Chris Pratt to the underdogs we thought would last forever, Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux. We stared at our screens in disbelief when we first read the headlines on Twitter, with everyone screaming nearly in unison, “Love is dead!!”
But it’s just a fact of life: People fall in love, and sometimes it just doesn’t work out. We all go through it, and we all know the pain well enough — feeling like the whole world is crashing around you and you swear you’ll never find love again, but then you do find it, and it’s one of the most magical moments of your life.
That’s exactly what these celebs experienced: love after heartbreak. And their words on losing a great love and finding the strength to move on truly hit home. Here are 15 of our favorite celebrity quotes about it.
A version of this article was originally published in August 2016.
Kaley Cuoco
Kaley Cuoco and Ryan Sweeting were married in 2013 and divorced in 2016. Following the divorce, Cuoco revealed during an interview with CBS This Morning that she didn't regret the way she loved, saying, "You know what, I'm not ashamed of anything that happened. I fall in love really hard, I do. I go deep. That person is it for me. And I love hard, and when it's over, it's over, and some people make mistakes."
Since then, Cuoco fell hard in love again, this time with Karl Cook. They got engaged in December 2017 on Cuoco's 32nd birthday.
Jennifer Garner
Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck's separation and subsequent divorce was anything but calm — complete with infidelity and nanny affair rumors. And it seems to have left Garner shaken up. In an interview with Vanity Fair in 2016, following the couple's announcement to separate that year, she spoke about how she felt: "My heart's a little on the tender side right now, and it's always easier to focus on the ways that you feel hurt, but I know that, with time and some perspective, I'll have a clearer sense of where I let the system down, because there's no way I get off in this."
Garner and Affleck's relationship is a bit steadier these days. The two have been co-parenting their three children, Violet, Samuel and Seraphina Rose, and even taking vacations together as a family.
Scarlett Johansson
Johansson, who is now married to Romain Dauriac, divorced Ryan Reynolds in 2011. Following their divorce, she admitted to Glamour magazine in 2014 that she was far more prepared for marriage the second time around.
"I feel I know now more of what I need in a relationship, what I want in a relationship," she said. "And I know I have more tools to communicate, not just with my partner, but with myself. That's not necessarily any reflection of who I was married to or what was happening in my marriage, but really where I was in my life."
Eva Longoria
Eva Longoria was married to Tyler Christopher from 2002 to 2004 and to Tony Parker from 2007 to 2011.
According to Marie Claire UK, Longoria hilariously opened up about divorce, saying, "I remember a friend of mine got a divorce right before me when it wasn’t even on my radar to be divorced, and I go, 'How exciting! Aren't you excited? You get to date people, you get to have a first kiss, a first date, a first sex with somebody. Isn't that great? It's gonna be fun!' When I got divorced, she was like, 'Aren’t you excited?' And I was like, 'No. Fuck you! Don't give me my advice!'"
Longoria married José Bastón in 2016, and they're now expecting their first child together.
Hilary Duff
Hilary Duff and her now ex-husband Mike Comrie finalized their divorce in 2015 after four years together. Following the split, Duff opened up to Redbook in 2016 about remarrying, saying, "I don't want to say I wouldn't get married again, but it's not important to me." Since then, Duff has started dating boyfriend Matthew Koma.
Kate Hudson
Hudson was married to rocker Chris Robinson for almost seven years before they called it off in 2007. They had one child together, Ryder.
Around that time, she told British chat show The Graham Norton Show she wasn't ready for marriage, saying, "I already have one child and have had one divorce, so [marriage] is not necessarily the golden ticket."
Hudson moved on with Muse rocker Matt Bellamy, with whom she had one child, Bingham. In April 2018, she and her new boyfriend, Danny Fujikawa, announced they are expecting her third child, a baby girl.
Olivia Wilde
Olivia Wilde married Jason Sudeikis after divorcing Tao Ruspoli in 2011. Wilde opened up about her divorce in Marie Claire in 2013, saying, "I had grown up with Tao; we had just drifted. I felt I had something to prove. If you fall off a horse, you get back up. I am not a quitter. I hung on for as long as possible, until it was more hurtful to stay." She and Sudeikis now have two children together: Otis Alexander and Daisy Josephine.
Reese Witherspoon
Reese Witherspoon was married to Ryan Philippe for seven years and had one child together — Ava — before they split in 2007. "There are things in my life that are hard to reconcile, like divorce," Witherspoon told Parade in 2008. "Sometimes it is very difficult to make sense of how it could possibly happen. Laying blame is so easy. I don't have time for hate or negativity in my life. There's no room for it." Since then, Witherspoon has moved on with Jim Toth, to whom she's been married since 2011.
Giada De Laurentiis
Giada De Laurentiis and her husband of 11 years, Todd Thompson, finalized their divorce in late 2015. She opened up to People magazine in 2015 about life after her divorce, saying, "I haven't been in that game since I was 18 years old. So it's a very different game when you're 45 with a child and a career."
Since the split, she has been dating producer Shane Farley — for over two years now.
Anna Faris
Following the announcement of Anna Faris and Chris Pratt's split in August 2017, Faris opened up on her podcast Unqualified about relationships, saying: "Life is too short to be in relationships where you feel this isn't fully right or somebody doesn't have your back, or somebody doesn't fully value you. Don't be afraid to feel your independence if things aren't right."
Miranda Kerr
Kerr and Orlando Bloom ended their three-year marriage in 2014. In September 2017, she told Net-a-Porter's weekly digital magazine The EDIT, "You can't close yourself off from love." And she didn't: She found love again in 2015 with Snapchat co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel, and the two wed in 2017. Just a few days ago, they welcomed their first child into the world: a baby boy, Hart.
Jessica Simpson
Simpson was married to Nick Lachey for four years before they split in 2006. Three years later, in an interview with Glamour, she spoke about how the divorce was "like a death in the family." But in 2014, she married San Francisco 49er tight end Eric Johnson, and together they have two kids, Maxwell Drew and Ace Knute.
Brandi Glanville
Glanville split from Eddie Cibrian in 2010 after nine years together. Now, she's living the single life. In an interview with Us Weekly in 2012, she spoke about how tough it is for her to meet decent guys, saying: "It's hard to meet guys because they want to date you because you are on TV, or there are guys who like you but don't want anything to do with you because you are on TV." More recently, in January 2018, Glanville split from her boyfriend at the time, Donald Friese.
Kim Kardashian
Kim Kardashian famously divorced Kris Humphries only 72 days after they tied the knot — telling InStyleUK in 2013 that she's "always been the type to fall in love fast." Since then, she's obviously found love again with Kanye West, with whom she now has three kids: North, Saint and Chicago.
Mandy Moore
In an interview with In Touch in March 2017, Mandy Moore spoke about bouncing back after her divorce from Ryan Adams. She's now happily engaged to her boyfriend of more than two years, Taylor Goldsmith.
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