Top 10 Celebrity Couples Who Secretly Dated

In March, People magazine broke the news that Emma and Chord were an item. However, the news wasn’t as breaking as “Glee”ful fans might have thought at the time. As was revealed in a US weekly article, the couple had been an item for about two months already and had managed to keep it a secret. Maybe they should have kept it a secret for longer, because just a couple months after the news of their relationship broke, they broke up. They did get back together a month later, but in October Emma was seen kissing someone else, which seemed to signal that her and Overstreet were over again.

You may be thinking that these two don’t belong here. Everyone knows that these “The 100” costars are married. But the crazy part is that until they got married, no one knew that they were even dating. The couple were married in May of 2019 but only announced the fact in June. Eliza took to Instagram in July to share their story. The co-stars had been close friends for years, but in 2019 they left the “friend zone” behind. And it all moved really fast. In February they felt things changing. In March Bob asked her out. In April he proposed, in May they were married and in June the world found out about it.

In the 1980s Tom Cruise was finding loads of success on the silver screen, with such films as “Risky Business,” “Top Gun” and “Rain Man.” And off screen he was mixing up a secret dating cocktail with superstar singer and actress, Cher. They met in 1985 at the wedding of Madonna and Sean Penn and the two had a fling soon thereafter. Cher was 38 and Cruise was 23 at the time. Apparently Cruise had “All the Right Moves” because Cher has since said that he was one of her “top five lovers.”

Justin’s breakup with Britney Spears in March 2002 was very much public. So maybe a secret relationship is just what he needed at the time. In 2017, Jenna Dewan admitted that the two had dated in the wake of the split. At the time, Dewan was an NSYNC backup dancer. Apparently though, their relationship was short, with Dewan adding that “We were like friends ...that dated”. Sounds like a beautiful friendship! According to her, the two are “still very good friends” - although, we assume, not in quite the same way …

We now know that Scott and Rihanna dated for about a year back in 2015, but at the time all we had were rumors. It remained that way until an interview that Travis did with Complex magazine that same year. The article hinted at the couple's romance, but according to the story’s writer Lawrence Schlossman, doing so angered the rapper. Not because he didn’t want anyone to know they were dating, but because supposedly she didn’t. According to Schlossman, Rihanna was said to be embarrassed by the relationship.

These two dated after Kim’s relationship with Ray J ended and before she became a household name with “Keeping Up with The Kardashians.” One reason you may not have known, was because the relationship only lasted a few months. Why so short you ask? Well, remember the Kim Kardashian sex tape? According to Cannon, they talked about it and she swore to him that there was no tape. Nick has said that if she’d been honest with him, he might have moved past it, but lying about it was a dealbreaker.

The “Friday Night Lights” star and the original MJ met on the set of the “Fargo” TV show back in 2015. When they announced their engagement in 2017 it came as a pretty big surprise, especially considering that most people didn’t even know they were dating. The next big surprise came when Dunst announced she was 8-months pregnant in early 2018. Then in August of 2019 Jesse referred to Dunst as “wife” in his speech at her Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony. The possible slip of the tongue sparked rumours that the couple had gone and secretly gotten married.

Holmes’ relationship with Tom Cruise was anything but secret. But after all the couch jumping and the scrutiny ended Katie moved on to a much calmer and unknown relationship with actor/singer/comedian, Jamie Foxx. In fact, it was so secret that their relationship wasn’t even confirmed publicly until just before they broke up. One can assume that Katie would have wanted something a little more private after being married to Cruise. But as it turns out, the secretive nature of her relationship with Foxx was allegedly Tom’s idea. Rumour has it that when they split Tom had Holmes agree to not date publicly for at least five years.

While fans might expect Swift to reveal everything in her songs, there are some things even she tries to keep secret. And one of those things is her boyfriend Joe Alwyn. We now know they have been together for years, but for the first little while the couple was able to keep it under wraps. As Swift wrote in a January 2017 diary entry, “We have been together and no one has found out for 3 months now.” Although it’s no longer a secret, the couple is still generally tight-lipped about their relationship. To quote Swift from a 2020 Rolling Stone interview: “the idea of privacy feels so strange to try to explain, but it’s really just trying to find bits of normalcy.”

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

Ryan Reynolds & Melissa Joan Hart
They “Fooled Around” But Hart Had a Boyfriend, So That’s Where the Magic Stopped

Kelly Clarkson & Justin Guarini
Fans Suspected They Were Dating at the Time, But It Was Only Confirmed Years Later

Jeffrey Dean Morgan & Hilarie Burton
Burton Gave Birth to Their Son Before Fans Even Knew She Was Pregnant

In July 2020, Rodgers and his girlfriend of two years, Danica Patrick, broke up. There were rumors about Aaron and Woodley, but that’s all they were. The couple didn’t say anything about it and managed to largely keep their relationship a secret for the next 8 months or so. It was only days before they announced their engagement when the news officially broke that they were even dating. Soon after, in an interview with Jimmy Fallon, Shailene said that she and Aaron had been engaged “for a while.” Which could mean that he put a ring on it long before the world knew they were even dating.