Even though it seems like plenty of celebrities meet and fall in love every day, some cultivate friendships that turn into relationships years down the road. There is a good amount of celebrity couples who were friends first, having their foundation as friends build slowly to a romantic relationship. While celebrity life doesn’t always mimic much of what’s “normal” for the rest of us, this definitely makes sense to those of us who have experienced a friends-to-lovers situation in our own lives.
It’s true that us “normal,” non-public people aren’t privy to all the details of a celebrity’s private life, but there are definitely times in which a celebrity makes it known they’re friends with someone – and that someone later turns into that person’s romantic partner. The following couples claimed to be friends first, sometimes with years of build-up leading to long-lasting relationships. Sometimes, the relationship lasts for a month or two only to fizzle out afterwards. And sometimes, the friendships turned into marriage and children, and a branding empire (looking at you, Kimye). These celebrity couple relationships prove that maybe timing does play more of a role in our romantic lives than we think, and sometimes, things can work out later on in our lives with people we once deemed as “just friends.”
Justin Bieber And Selena Gomez
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Kim Kardashian And Kanye West
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On the Keeping Up with the Kardashians 10-year anniversary special which aired in 2017, Kim Kardashian revealed how her friendship with Kanye West began. She said that she met West when he recorded a song with Brandy in 2002 or 2003. Back then, West didn’t even know how to pronounce Kardashian’s last name, and even said “Who is this Kim Kardajan?” Kardashian said she and West maintained a friendship even through her marriage to Kris Humphries, and she flew to Paris to see West’s fashion show shortly after her separation from Humphries.
Kardashian said on the television special:
He jokes that he put on this whole fashion show just to get a date with me. So I went there and I stayed with him, and that’s where we started dating. I swear from the moment I landed, I fell madly in love with him and I thought, ‘Oh my God, why didn’t I do this sooner?’
The pair have been married since 2013 and have three children together: North, Saint, and Chicago.
Ariana Grande And Mac Miller
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Joe Jonas And Demi Lovato
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Joe Jonas and Demi Lovato met while filming 2009 Disney Channel Original Movie Camp Rock when the two were co-stars. The two remained friends until their public relationship in 2010 and Lovato said they dated for “a month or two.”
In October 2017, Lovato was in a YouTube video reacting to childhood videos. When watching a scene between her and Jonas from Camp Rock, she said that was the moment she fell in love with him IRL and the two shared their first kiss when acting on-screen.
Samira Wiley And Lauren Morelli
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Samira Wiley and Lauren Morelli met on the Orange is the New Black set in December 2012, where Wiley was an actress and Morelli a writer. They had an instant connection and bonded through friendship while Morelli navigated questioning her sexuality while married to a man.
Wiley told Bust Magazine for its April/May 2018 issue:
I remember those first months with her, trying to figure out her journey with her own sexuality. Feeling like she picked me as the person she was going to talk to about all of it. And it wasn’t sexual, it was just like a friend. There was something deeply intimate about that, whether there was sexual tension there or not. The deep intimacy of being two people talking about the core of who we are. Talking about our journeys. Not even necessarily flirting on set, but on the phone, thousands of miles apart, talking about Who are we? And does this make me a different person? Does this actually make me who I am now? That’s how we fell in love.
Wiley and Morelli married on March 25, 2017.
Emily Ratajkowski And Sebastian Bear-McClard
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Model, actress, and feminist activist Emily Ratajkowski married longtime friend Sebastian Bear-McClard in a wedding ceremony at New York City City Hall on Feb. 23.
“Emily has known Sebastian for years,” a source told Us Weekly. “They were all in a friend group … He wasn’t a stranger.”
Also in their friend group? Instagram famous meme-maker The Fat Jew.
Ashley Iaconetti And Jared Haibon
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