Top 10 Actor Exes Who Had to Kiss on TV

The relationship between Allison and Issac on the “Teen Wolf” television show was a definite roller coaster ride. They went from enemies to friends to lovers, while behind the scenes, actors Crystal and Daniel went from costars to lovers to exes. However, the exes part for the real-life couple happened to coincide with the lovers part for their onscreen characters. So, around the time that the two actors decided to stop kissing off-screen they reportedly had to start kissing on-screen. Thankfully it appears that they ended things amicably, so it maybe wasn’t as awkward as it could have been otherwise.

It’s a tale as old as time: a couple dates for a few years, then 25 years after they break up they have to make out on camera. Ok, so maybe this isn’t the plot to the next Disney movie. But it is what happened to MacLachlan and Dern. These two met on the set of David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet” and dated from approximately 1985-89. Then, almost three decades later, Lynch reunited the ex-couple for the third season of “Twin Peaks.” As with most things Lynchian, we aren’t sure we completely understood the show. But we’re sure they kissed!

Ahhh, the rebound! We know fans of the show “Alias” might not want to hear this, but that’s probably what Vartan was to Jennifer Garner during their time together off-screen. The couple starred in the spy-thriller series together during the early-2000s. Between 2003-04, Garner was finalizing her divorce from Scott Foley, during which she and Vartan dated for about six months. They called it quits in the summer of 2004 - which was just around the time their onscreen romance started heating up. So not only was Vartan kissing his ex on screen, but by 2005 his ex was also married to Ben Affleck and pregnant with his child.

The show might have been called “Dawson’s Creek” but it was Dawson’s best friend Pacey, played by Jackson, who was the big winner of the series. He got the girl on the show and in real life. And that girl was Katie Holmes. He was Holmes’ first love and the couple dated between 1998-99. When the couple broke up, it could have made the next four seasons of filming, and kissing, kinda awkward. But as Holmes explained in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine shortly after the breakup, “I feel so fortunate because he's now one of my best friends.”

When Hall and Carpenter separated in 2010 - after reportedly less than 20 months of marriage - they knew they would still have to work together on “Dexter.” However, being that they played brother and sister on the show, they probably didn’t think they’d have to do any on-screen kissing. Well, they were wrong. One of the most controversial and divisive plotlines of the entire series involved Debra realizing that she was in love with her brother. Sure, Dexter was her adopted brother. But for some fans of the show, that didn’t make it any less “icky” when the two kiss in - what turns out to be - a Debra dream sequence.

“Riverdale” premiered in 2017 and that was also when Lili Reinhart and Cole Sprouse’s relationship began. The two play on-screen couple Betty and Jughead on the show. And while their on-screen love is relatively strong (for a teen drama, anyway), in real life things have been much more on again, off again. Their first reported breakup came in 2019 when filming was just about to begin on season 4. Maybe it was all the on-screen kissing they did that season, but the couple ended up getting back together. They ended things again around the beginning of 2020 - before filming season 5. The new season is set to start airing in January of 2021 and will, we assume, find them in more lip-locking scenes together.

It’s interesting that, on a show called “Gossip Girl,” Blake and Penn were able to keep their real life relationship a secret for so long. Is that irony? Maybe in an Alanis Morissette kinda way? The couple were together both on and off-screen for the first few seasons of the show - although they went so far as to deny it in interviews. The jig was finally up when they were photographed kissing in Cancun. When the relationship did end in 2010 after three years, the two also kept it on the down-lo and were consummate professionals. So much so that even their bosses didn’t know they had broken up.

On-screen, Leonard was pushing boxes of furniture up several flights of stairs, sweating through his dress shirts and getting pantsed by Penny’s mega-muscled ex-boyfriend in an effort to get close to her. But off-screen, Galecki and Cuoco were a couple. They dated secretly for a couple years, but remained very good friends after their 2009 breakup. Which is good, because the show became a huge hit and they ended up having about 10 more years of episodes to film together. And with Leonard and Penny dating and getting married, many of those episodes had these IRL exes playing on-screen lovebirds.

As with many of the ex-lovers on our list, Ian and Nina also reportedly first met on the set of their show. At first, fans of “The Vampire Diaries” didn’t know they were dating IRL. While there was certainly speculation thanks to paparazzi photos of the two doing numerous activities together, the couple kept their off-screen relationship secret for quite awhile - up until about the time that some Paris vacation PDA was caught on camera. They dated for about three years and ended things in 2013. The post-breakup, on-screen smooching might have been a little awkward. But they didn’t let it affect their work. In fact, in 2014 they won “Favorite On Screen Chemistry” at the People’s Choice Awards, leading to a great, "it’s a good thing it’s not awkward” speech from the ex-couple.

“One Tree Hill” premiered in 2003 and while the drama on the show had fans hooked, Chad and Sophia went through their own drama behind the scenes. By 2005, the couple had dated, gotten engaged, been married for five months and split up. Bush would later talk about how tough that time was, even going so far as to say that the marriage, “was not a thing I actually really wanted to do” in 2018. This statement led to what some believed to be a Twitter feud of sorts between the ex-couple. As tough as things were, the exes were able to suck it up and continue to work together back in the day. Since Lucas and Brooke broke up at the start of season four, Murray and Bush shared limited on-screen kisses post-divorce. The most memorable would have to be the one during the daydream sequence in season 6, which wasChad’s final season as a main character.