Life imitating art! While some may frown at the idea of dating coworkers, when actors spend hours on set with someone — especially if they’re acting as a couple — relationships naturally form.
“I had my first love, and it was something so incredible and indescribable. I feel so fortunate because he’s now one of my best friends,” Katie Holmes said in 1998 about her real-life relationship with her Dawson’s Creek costar Joshua Jackson; the two briefly dated while filming the WB teen drama, but later split. “He’s been in the business so long, and he’s really helped me. I respect him as a friend and as a professional.”
It’s been 11 years since then, but TV couples are still falling in love off screen. Riverdale costars Lili Reinhart and Cole Sprouse play onscreen couple Betty and Jughead. In real life, they dated for nearly two years before briefly splitting in July 2019. Reinhart confirmed that they were back together two months later. Reinhart confirmed that they were back together two months later, but Us Weekly confirmed they called it quits for good in May 2020.
“Lili was a tough egg to crack. She’s very shy at first and reserved. I think it was about halfway into the first season she started letting people in, truly,” Sprouse told Glamour in 2018. “She’s one of those people that consistently pushes me to be better at the arts that I’m pursuing. That’s just the kind of person she is.”
However, it’s not always an amicable separation. One Tree Hill stars Sophia Bush and Chad Michael Murray’s characters Brooke and Lucas had an on-off relationship during the CW drama. Shortly after they began dating, they married in 2005; five months later, they went through a messy split. In 2018, Bush revealed that it was tough to go back to working together after.
“There was no space to self-reflect. There was like, ‘This is my integrity, this is my job, I will not falter for one second or one minute ever on this set,” she said, adding that producers were “deeply inappropriate” to the pair post-split. “It was opportunistic and ugly and when you run a show, you’re like a parent. You’re supposed to protect your flock and it was the opposite of that. I imagine that was hard for him as well. It was a very ugly situation on their part. I think they kind of lived for the drama.”
Scroll through the gallery below for more TV couples who were romantically involved in real life!