Staggering alimonies, custody battles, salacious scandals. Hollywood marriages are tricky, and their divorces even trickier.
The latest divorce news from Tinseltown is between Amber Heard and Johnny Depp. Depp recently lost a libel case in Britain against a tabloid that branded him a “wife beater.” With that, he was forced to resign from the Fantastic Beasts franchise as villain Gellert Grindelwald. Once one of the world’s most bankable stars, thanks to this stirring turn as Captain Jack Sparrow of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, now Depp finds himself disenfranchised.
Back in 2015, everything was coming up roses for him. He married the hot and gorgeous Heard, after meeting on the set of 2011’s The Rum Diary. They jet-set around the world and attended glamorous events and parties. After 15 months of marriage, she filed for divorce, accusing Depp of domestic violence and even obtained a restraining order against him. Their bitter divorce proceedings were dragged out across the media, culminating in the recent defeat for Depp in court. Every tiny detail of their volatile relationship was shared, with fans taking sides and media having a field day. But Heard and Depp are hardly the only celebrity couple that ended their relationship in a bitter, humiliating way.
Here are five other couples that are left without their fairy-tale ending:
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes (2006-2012)
She once had his Top Gun poster pinned up in her room. He once jumped on Oprah’s couch on her talk show proclaiming his love for her, seen by millions. They may seem like an odd couple (he is 16 years her senior), but for a while, they really made it work. They married in 2005, and all is well until parenting differences surfaced. They could not see eye-to-eye on raising their daughter. Scientology was the major culprit here. Holmes did not agree to their daughter Suri having an exclusively Scientology education.
Before we know it, Holmes secretly moved across the country and quietly files for divorce in 2012. It was the stealthiness of her preparation and eventual announcement of her divorce that makes the whole affair sensational. It was almost as though Holmes was planning for an escape, not a divorce.
Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger (1993-2002)
You remember the leaked phone voicemail Alec Baldwin left for his then 11-year-old daughter, Ireland? He called her a “rude, thoughtless pig” when she missed a scheduled call from him. Baldwin blamed it on the stress of his custody fight with Kim Basinger for his explosive message.
The couple were married for nine years and split in 2001 when Ireland was just seven. The custody battle for Ireland went on for four years. The humiliating voice message was submitted to the courts as part of the custody battle, which did Baldwin more harm. In fact, Baldwin once compared his divorce and custody battle to the Battle of the Dien Bien Phu- a climatic Indochina war in the 1950s.
Everything is water under the bridge now. After all, Ireland is already 25, and Baldwin has moved on and remarried. He is now a proud father of six children, including Ireland.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (2014-2016)
Theirs did not start off well to begin with. He was married to American’s Sweetheart, Jennifer Aniston. Brad Pitt and Angeline Jolie met on the set of Mr and Mrs Smith and fell in love, leaving a devastated Anniston, whom he had married for four years, in despair.
Shortly after the movie came out in 2005, where rumours were rife with the Brangelina affair, Pitt divorced Anniston and swiftly made it official with Jolie. The pair had three biological children and adopted two more (excluding Jolie’s first adopted child, Maddox), and finally walked down the aisle in 2014.
Alas, the marriage only lasted for two years before things went south. Pitt was accused of child abuse when news got out of an alleged incident involving Maddox onboard a private jet. Pitt was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing.
Their public war involved a smear campaign in which Brad was painted as an unfit dad with drinking issues, while his close friends claimed that Jolie was a control freak who allegedly drove him to drink.
A long, arduous custody battle of their six children ensued. During this period, Pitt only had limited and mostly supervised contact with his children. He was eventually awarded joint custody. Except that Jolie is still demanding full custody of the children, with plans to relocate the brood from Los Angeles to Europe. The pair are reportedly hardly speaking, while Pitt has gotten on friendly terms with his first ex, Anniston.
Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards (2002-2006)
Denise Richards was pregnant with Charlie Sheen’s second baby when she filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. Sheen’s rep was quick to share that there was no scandal involved in the couple’s marriage.
However, court documents showed that Richards claimed Sheen “pushed her, threatened to kill her, and threatened her parents”, all of which he denied. Richards went as far as to claim that Sheen has “alleged pornography and prostitution habits" and they were a risk to their children. The couple married in 2002, but by 2005, Richards had filed for a divorce
Richards also shared that Sheen "hit her on the wrist and shoved her in the stomach" when she discovered porn sites featuring "very young girls." Sheen declared those claims to be baseless. He was subsequently tested HIV positive in 2015. Richards has since moved on and remarried.
Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher (2005-2013)
With a 16-year gap between them, their romance was thrust into the spotlight from the beginning. Demi Moore was 40, and Aston Kutcher was 25 when they met. The couple married in 2005 and broke up six years later.
Moore later wrote in her book that while they were initially happy, things turned south when Kutcher encouraged threesomes and broke her sobriety. And he cheated. Kutcher denied any cheating on his end. The breakdown in marriage caused Moore to suffer a breakdown herself, and entered rehab.
Things looked up for Kutcher after, he dated and married his That 70s Show costar Mila Kunis and the pair has two children.
