11 celebrities who got candid about being cheated on — and how they handled the heartbreak

Britt HayesSat, October 24, 2026 at 12:15 PM UTC

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Halle Berry on Sept. 24, 2026 in New York City; Sandra Bullock on Aug. 31, 2026 in Los Angeles; Eva Longoria on Oct. 17, 2026 in Los AngelesCredit: Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage; Chloe Kern/FilmMagic; Taylor Hill/FilmMagic

We often read about celebrity cheating scandals, whether it’s Michael Douglas spilling the tea on his illicit on-set affairs or the latest blind item in the gossip rotation. But we don’t often hear from the celebs who were cheated on.

That’s understandable: Getting cheated on is humiliating enough without the added pressure of public scrutiny. While it’s frankly none of our business what goes on behind closed doors in a relationship, hearing someone as famous and beloved as Sandra Bullock or Eva Longoria discuss their experiences with infidelity — and how they got through it — can be comforting for those who are getting over a breakup with an unfaithful partner.

Keep reading to find out what 11 celebrities have said about getting cheated on and how they handled the heartbreak.

01 of 11

Sandra Bullock

Sandra Bullock at the premiere of ‘Practical Magic 2’ on Aug. 31, 2026 in Los AngelesCredit: Chloe Kern/FilmMagic

Jesse James became one of the most hated men in the country back in 2010, when news broke that the TV personality cheated on his then-wife, Sandra Bullock. Cheating on America’s sweetheart? In this economy?!

The actress hasn’t said much about the scandal and subsequent divorce, but in a recent chat with Jennifer Aniston for Interview Magazine, Bullock opened up about how she coped during that period.

“The one film that was the most meaningful to me, because it was paralleling where I was, was Gravity,” Bullock said, referencing the 2013 sci-fi drama costarring George Clooney. “It was during a really dark time in my life.”

“I was raising and protecting a little smurf while I was trying to grieve, trying to get out of it,” Bullock added, referring to her son. “Being locked in a box by myself with no one to talk to for nine hours a day, you do a lot of thinking.”

02 of 11

Meg Ryan

Meg Ryan at the 2026 Vanity Fair Oscar Party held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on March 15, 2026Credit: Chad Salvador/Getty

Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid separated in 2000 after nine years of marriage, setting off a tabloid circus about Ryan’s rumored affair with her Proof of Life costar Russell Crowe. In 2008, Ryan set the record straight about her not-so-happy marriage to Quaid and the affair that made her feel like Hollywood’s “scarlet woman.”

“It was a great story,” she told InStyle (via TODAY). “But what wasn’t in the story was the reality of my marriage for nine years. Dennis was not faithful to me for a long time, and that was very painful. I found out more about that once I was divorced.”

Ryan clarified that Crowe wasn’t responsible for breaking up her marriage, and she felt like he “took a big hit” in the public eye. “He was definitely there at the end, but it wasn’t his fault. I was a mess. I hurt him, too, at the end. I couldn’t be in another long relationship, it wasn’t the time for that. So I got out.”

“I am not a victim,” she continued. “My time as a scarlet woman was really interesting. As painful as it was, it was also incredibly liberating. I didn’t have to care about what people thought.”

03 of 11

Sienna Miller

Sienna Miller at the Women of the Year Lunch and Awards on Oct. 12, 2026 in LondonCredit: Dave Benett/Getty

Sienna Miller was engaged to Jude Law in 2005 when he admitted to having an affair with the nanny to his children from a previous marriage. A media frenzy ensued and Law apologized, but the couple called it quits shortly after.

“That was one of the most challenging moments I hope I’ll ever have to experience,” Miller said in a 2020 interview with The Daily Beast. Miller, who was performing in a West End production of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It at the time, explained, “with that level of public heartbreak, to have to get out of a bed let alone stand in front of 800 people every night, it’s just the last thing you want to do.”

“There’s a whole six weeks of that experience that I don’t remember,” Miller added. “I have no recollection of it. People who came to see me said we had dinner, and I don’t remember. I was in so much shock over it all. And I’d really just begun.”

“I was only 23,” she noted. “But if you get through that, you feel like you can get through anything.”

04 of 11

Gayle King

Gayle King at the 2026 TIME100 Summit on April 22, 2026 in New York CityCredit: Craig Barritt/Getty

Gayle King had long been divorced from her ex-husband William Bumpus when she shared the brutal details of his affair on the Call Her Daddy podcast. Their divorce was the culmination of a real galaxy-brain situation that occurred in 1990: Not only was her husband cheating, he was having an affair with King’s close friend in their home while their kids were present.

“I came home and caught him,” said King, who recalled confronting her former friend. “I wanted to say, ‘Could you take out the trash?’ But I didn’t.”

“She was married, and I said, ‘I’m calling him,’ her husband. And [Bumpus] goes, ‘Don’t call because they have a good marriage.’ [I said], ‘They have a good marriage? The girl’s pajama bottoms are in my bed,’” she said. After begging King not to tell her friend’s husband, Bumpus left to take the unnamed friend to the train station — leaving King alone.

Naturally, the first person she called was her longtime BFF, Oprah Winfrey. “I called Oprah, and Oprah goes, ‘Let me get this straight. He left you there alone and went with her?’” King said. “And she said, ‘Oh girl, you don’t even know how bad this is.’ And I’m going, ‘Yeah, but he said they had a good marriage.’ Stupid.”

At Winfrey’s urging, King called the friend’s husband to tell him what happened, but he didn’t believe her. “He said, ‘She told me you would be calling. She said that you came home early unexpected, and you drew the wrong conclusion. And she told me you would call and say that you thought they were having an affair,’” recalled King. “Masterful. Isn’t that masterful?”

05 of 11

Halle Berry

Halle Berry attends Through Her Lens: The Tribeca CHANEL Women’s Filmmaker Program Cocktail on Sept. 24, 2026 in New York CityCredit: Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage

Halle Berry praised Gayle King for sharing her story during an appearance on Today With Jenna & Sheinelle, where she also opened up about her past experiences with an unfaithful partner. “It’s taking your power back, and I think we should talk about it. Absolutely,” Berry said of King. “And I’m proud of her for saying that and sharing this that happened, because it has happened to many of us,” she added, gesturing at herself.

Berry reflected on discovering that her ex-husband Eric Benét was having an affair while they were married in the early ’00s. (Benét subsequently admitted to the affair and checked into a rehab program for sex addiction.) “You remember every detail of the whole situation, and it stays with you forever,” the X-Men actress said. “So when you can share it, somehow that’s therapeutic. It’s a catharsis when you can really share it, and someone else can say what their experience has been. So I appreciate [King].”

Berry added that she “couldn’t hide” because the allegations were “all over the news” at the time. “I didn’t talk about it necessarily very publicly, but I did talk about it,” she said. “I did not carry the shame. I talked about it with my friends, I talked about it with other women.”

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She continued, “There were children involved, I didn’t go on a public rampage about things, but I did talk about it, and it was very, very helpful. I needed that.”

06 of 11

Robert Pattinson

Robert Pattinson at the premiere of ‘Primetime’ on Oct. 11, 2026Credit: Ian West/PA/Getty

It’s even more rare that we hear from male celebrities who were cheated on, like Robert Pattinson. The Primetime actor was in a highly publicized relationship with Twilight costar Kristen Stewart in 2012, when paparazzi caught the latter kissing director Rupert Sanders on the set of Snow White and the Huntsman. It wasn’t until 2014 — a year after their split — that Pattinson reflected on the whole situation.

“S--- happens, you know?” he told Esquire UK (via ET Online). “It’s just young people… it’s normal! And honestly, who gives a s---?” Pattinson went on to say that he was more bothered by how other people reacted. “The hardest part was talking about it afterwards. Because when you talk about other people, it affects them in ways you can’t predict,” he explained. “It’s like that scene in Doubt, where he’s [Philip Seymour Hoffman] talking about how to take back gossip? They throw all those feathers from a pillow into the sky and you’ve got to go and collect all the feathers.”

Pattinson and Stewart have both moved on romantically (he’s with Suki Waterhouse, she’s married to Dylan Meyer), but they’ve remained friends. In 2023, Stewart even crashed Pattinson’s birthday party.

07 of 11

Emma Thompson

Emma Thompson at the 2026 Albies on Oct. 9, 2026 in LondonCredit: Anthony Sinclair/Getty

You know the scene: In the 2003 rom-com Love Actually, Emma Thompson’s character discovers her husband (Alan Rickman) is having an affair with a younger woman and retreats to her bedroom, where she puts Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” on the stereo and sobs privately before regaining her composure as if nothing happened. It’s devastating.

“That scene where my character is standing by the bed crying is so well known because it’s something everyone’s been through,” Thompson said at a 2018 fundraiser for the Tricycle Theatre in London, per the Telegraph. According to the actress, she was channeling her real-life experience from her marriage to Kenneth Branagh, which ended in 1995 after she learned he was having an affair with Helena Bonham Carter.

“I’ve had so much bloody practice at crying in a bedroom, then having to go out and be cheerful, gathering up the pieces of my heart and putting them in a drawer,” she said, adding that she holds no ill will toward Carter. “That is… all blood under the bridge. You can’t hold on to anything like that. It’s pointless. I haven’t got the energy for it… Helena and I made our peace years and years ago… she’s a wonderful woman,” said Thompson.

08 of 11

Eva Longoria

Eva Longoria at the 6th Annual Academy Museum Gala at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on Oct. 17, 2026 in Los AngelesCredit: Taylor Hill/FilmMagic

In 2010, Eva Longoria divorced her husband of three years, San Antonio Spurs player Tony Parker, after discovering he’d been exchanging inappropriate text messages with their mutual friend, Erin Barry, who was married to Parker’s teammate.

Reflecting on the dissolution of her marriage in a 2013 appearance on Lifetime’s The Conversation With Amanda de Cadenet, the Desperate Housewives star ultimately had a positive outlook on the situation. “I am so secure in who I am. I really am! And I’m not conceited. I just go, ‘Wow, okay, that’s the life you want to live.’ It wasn’t about who he chose,” Longoria explained, admitting that she had to navigate some insecurity after learning of the alleged affair. “I mean, I had moments [where I wondered], ‘Am I not sexy enough? Am I not pretty enough? Am I not smart enough?’ But in so many of those questions, I immediately stopped and said, ‘No, don’t start doing that.’ Because you can get stuck in that cycle and you can carry on to other things.”

The actress explained that she encouraged Parker to open up about the alleged affair because she “really wanted to know why” it happened. Though hearing her ex’s explanation “didn’t make me feel better,” Longoria said, “it helped me understand,” and more importantly, she understood that the infidelity “was definitely not about me.”

09 of 11

Erin Foster

Erin Foster at the David Foster Foundation 40th Anniversary Celebration on Aug. 7, 2026 in Victoria, British ColumbiaCredit: Vito Amati/Getty

Sometimes the gossip accounts get it right. During a 2023 episode of Erin and Sara Foster’s The World’s First Podcast, the former confirmed that a past Deuxmoi blind item about her relationship with Chad Michael Murray was correct. The blind item in question claimed that Murray cheated on Erin with his One Tree Hill costar Sophia Bush.

“I mean, yeah. He definitely did cheat on me with her, in like, a pretty egregious way,” Erin said. “While we were living together. Pretty cool.” Murray would neither confirm nor deny Erin’s allegations, later telling E! News, “I have more regrets in my life than I care to think about, but I don’t live in the past.”

Murray and Bush tied the knot, but their marriage ended after less than a year. Bush has also accused Murray of being unfaithful to her, and recently told Alex Cooper that she even befriended some of the women he allegedly had an affair with.

10 of 11

Kathie Lee Gifford

Kathie Lee Gifford at the launch celebration for QVC’s Q50 “Age Of Possibility” platform on May 14, 2025 in Santa Monica, Calif.Credit: Michael Tullberg/Getty

Kathie Lee Gifford has a different perspective on infidelity than most. The former TODAY show anchor was married to Frank Gifford for nearly three decades when he died in 2015, but their marriage was far from perfect: In 1997, a tabloid revealed that Frank was having an affair. Rather than end the marriage, the couple reconciled and remained married until Frank’s death

“I came home a week after that happened [to reconcile with Frank],” Gifford told PEOPLE. “There’s not a day that goes by that somebody doesn’t come up to me and say, ‘I just want you to know I had separated from my husband, and I went back. We went for counseling. We healed our marriage.’”

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Now 73, Gifford said that she’s not dating anyone at the moment and doesn’t plan to, but that she’s open to the possibility of changing her mind. “Frank will always be the love of my life,” she said. “If God wants to do something miraculous, like give me another great love [then I’m open to it]. And so I leave room for the miraculous to happen.”

11 of 11

Shania Twain

Shania Twain at the 2026 ACM Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 17, 2026 in Las VegasCredit: Taylor Hill/Getty

Shania Twain isn’t interested in carrying her ex-husband’s baggage. The Canadian country star divorced producer Robert “Mutt” Lange in 2010 after discovering he was having an affair with her close friend Marie-Anne Thiébaud.

Twain understandably struggled for months in the aftermath, but eventually turned a corner and published her first memoir, From This Moment On, the following year. Asked what advice she’d share with women who are coping with infidelity, the singer told Redbook, “Being betrayed is one of the most valuable lessons life can teach. Now that you are wise to the game, you have the tools to choose your friends more carefully and protect your inner circle from these predators. Wear your scars like a badge. Someone hurt you, you lived through it, and now you can talk about it without rage and revenge in your heart.”

She reflected further on the dissolution of her marriage — and her capacity for forgiveness — during a 2024 appearance on the Great Company with Jamie Laing podcast. “It’s very hard to hate or not be able to forgive somebody that you believe is a human being that deserves empathy and understanding. And I think we all do,” Twain told the host. “Do I hate my ex-husband for making a mistake? No. It’s his mistake. Not my mistake.”

Twain added, “So sad for him that he made such a great mistake that he has to live with. And I don’t know what that is, but it’s not... That’s not my weight.”

on Entertainment Weekly

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