We’ve looked at those celebrity unions that stood the test of time, defying the odds to last for decades. Now, we turn the spotlight on the polar opposite, celebrities whose wedded “bliss” lasted mere months, sometimes days — and even in a few cases, just hours. Read on for our sampling of ill-fated unions that failed to reach their first anniversaries.
Marriage lasted: 11 months
J.Lo and her men have been making headlines for decades, but the singer, dancer and age-defying beauty first married in 1997. She reportedly met Ojani Noa when he was a waiter at a restaurant owned by singer Gloria Estefan. Lasting just under a year — and with Noa reportedly keeping mum thanks to a confidentiality agreement — the marriage, Lopez has noted, is one of her first two that just doesn’t count.
Marriage lasted: 9 months
The 2002 marriage of actress Shannen Doherty (“Beverly Hills, 90210”) to professional poker player Rick Salomon, her second marriage, was annulled after 9 months. It was a bit jarring when Doherty, who had quite the bad-girl rep in Hollywood, was pretty vocal the following year about her disgust when Salomon was making headlines himself after a sex tape of him and socialite Paris Hilton made the rounds.
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Marriage lasted: 9 months
Actress Lauren Holly and funnyman Jim Carrey starred together in “Dumb and Dumber,” marrying two years later in 1996. Some reports labeled her a “homewrecker,” with his first wife — whom Carrey was finally divorced from in 1995 — questioning the timing of their meeting. Holly reportedly insisted that Carrey and his soon-to-be-ex were “completely apart” when they met. A favorite of paparazzi, the celeb couple filed for divorce some 10 months after the wedding, noting the marriage had ended a month earlier.
Marriage lasted: 8 months
This indie-darling couple met through “Saturday Night Live” — he a comedian who was a regular on the show and she, a noted actress who appeared in a sketch. They married a year after they met, reportedly separating after eight months and announcing the split two months later in August of 2010. Nearly two years later, Moss reportedly told Page Six, “One of the greatest things I heard someone say about him is, ‘He’s so great at doing impersonations. But the greatest impersonation he does is that of a normal person.’ To me, that sums it up.” Ouch.
Marriage lasted: 8 months
A Christmastime wedding in 2018 united the “Wrecking Ball” singer and her Australian actor husband, who had first started dating nearly a decade earlier when both were cast in the movie “The Last Song.” Cue the start of on-again, off-again rumors including an on-again, off-again extended engagement. The very private wedding in Tennessee was followed, sadly, by the announcement of their breakup the following August. Cyrus reportedly noted there was just “too much conflict” in the marriage.
Marriage lasted: 225 days
Talk about rumors. It was just four months when actress Renée Zellweger filed to have her marriage to country crooner Kenny Chesney annulled, citing “fraud.” It was widely reported the term was “code” for Chesney being gay. It got so bad that Zellweger released a statement to “clarify that the term ‘fraud’ as listed in the documentation is simply legal language and not a reflection of Kenny’s character.” 2005 proved quite the year for the duo, who had met at a benefit concert in January, were married in April and had parted ways by the year’s end.
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Marriage lasted: 213 days
J.Lo makes her second appearance on this list with her second marriage, in October 2001 to her one-time backup dancer Cris Judd, also a choreographer and actor. As with Ojani Noa, her first husband, this short-lived marriage (they split in July 2002) was somewhat dismissed by Lopez. As she told Diane Sawyer that year, “I’ve been married twice but I haven’t had a marriage yet… This is not to take anything away from Cris or Ojani, who are wonderful people and who I loved very much, but I think it more had to do with me.” She would go on to a 10-year marriage with Marc Anthony, which produced two children.
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Marriage lasted: 205 days
Entertainment Weekly has called the dissolution of legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor’s 1950-51 marriage to hotel heir Conrad “Nicky” Hilton, “her first divorce and certainly not her last.” True, the 18-year-old stood her ground, reportedly telling the court that her 24-year-old hubby had been “indifferent to me and used abusive language.” Taylor, of course, would go on to seven more marriages — including two to Richard Burton.
Marriage lasted: 166 days
Talk about a wacky pairing. The former child star and the boundary-pushing Canadian comic — does anyone remember “Lonely Swedish (The Bum Bum Song)"? — tied the knot in July of 2001 and filed for divorce that December. What ended up as an ill-fated union of “Charlie’s Angels” movie co-stars recently led to a charming reunion when Green appeared on Barrymore’s eponymous talk show. It proved a bit of a “love fest,” with Barrymore saying, “We’ve lived so much in these last 20 years. It’s just really nice to come together … I think the world of you and I celebrate you and I always have and I always will.”
Marriage lasted: 5 months
Doherty makes her second appearance on this list, this time having failed to meet the 6-month mark with her first marriage. It was to Ashley Hamilton, son of famed (and eternally tanned) actor George Hamilton, whom she married after reportedly knowing for only two weeks. It was reported that their Sept. 24, 1993 marriage ended when they separated the following Feb. 23. The filing by Doherty noted “irreconcilable differences.”
Marriage lasted: 145 days
For all the news Charlie Sheen continues to generate, some of his earliest notoriety came from his short-lived first marriage to model Donna Peele. The couple, who reportedly met on a 1995 shoot for an advertising campaign, wed some six weeks after their introduction with the divorce filing just six months after that.
Marriage lasted: 122 days
Ah, Pammy … she just seems to love love. The Canadian-born actress, pinup and all-around celebrity will be making more than one appearance here, first for her union with rocker, um, Kid Rock. They were first engaged in 2002 but never married, splitting the following year — only to reunite in the summer of 2006, reportedly running into each other on a yacht in St. Tropez (as you do). That led to a whirlwind wedding shortly after, followed by a Thanksgiving-time divorce.
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Marriage lasted: 107 days
Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of the legend that was Elvis Presley, was with actor Nicolas Cage for two years before they tied the knot in 2002. Despite her hopes, it just did not work out, as she said on “Larry King Live” in 2003: “It was kind of one of those things where you marry someone hoping — I mean we’d already had — we’d been together for two years before we got married, so — it was one of those things where you’re marrying hoping that you’re going to either stabilize it or it’s going to, you know, accentuate all that was going on prior to what was problematic … So it kind of did the latter, that’s all.”
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Marriage lasted: 4 months
Back before actor Bradley Cooper was a household name — and sizzled for his work in “A Star Is Born” — he had a short-lived marriage to actress Jennifer Esposito, the pair tying the knot in the south of France in December 2006. Some four months later, Esposito, now perhaps best known for “Blue Bloods,” was citing “irreconcilable differences” as she filed for divorce.
Marriage lasted: 72 days
Earlier this summer, media sensation Kim Kardashian said — on the “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” reunion — that she owed Kris Humphries, the NBA player who was her husband for less than three months in 2011, an apology. Kardashian said she got cold feet but proceeded, as the wedding was set to be filmed for the TV show and she didn’t want to be considered “the runaway bride forever.”
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Marriage lasted: 2 months
Talk about two-fers. Actress-pinup Pamela Anderson makes our list again, as does pro-poker player/film producer Rick Salomon. This time, though, there’s an extra twist — this pair had two short-lived marriages, tying the knot in October of 2007, only to separate that December. In 2014, Anderson announced they had married again. But filed for divorce, again.
Marriage lasted: 32 days
Short-lived celebrity marriages have been happening for decades, as the short marriage of Broadway belter Ethel Merman and acclaimed actor Ernest Borgnine prove. It was his second trip down the aisle, having met the stage star at a cocktail party during his prolonged divorce proceedings from his first wife. She was seven years older and he became her fourth husband, when they married in Hollywood in 1964. It would be a rocky ride, or as Borgnine reportedly noted: “I was married to a lovely lady who was a star. I was married to her for 32 days and that was enough.”
Marriage lasted: 19 days
Drew Barrymore’s wedding to Tom Green wasn’t her first. At age 19, she married British-born bar owner Jeremy Thomas, reportedly meeting at his Los Angeles bar, The Room. It was a whirlwind romance of some six months, a spur-of-the-moment marriage in the wee hours on the roof of his bar — and a swift filing for divorce.
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Marriage lasted: Two weeks
The ubiquitous Mario Lopez (yet forever A.C. Slater from “Saved by the Bell”) tied the knot with the “Doritos Girl” Ali Landry on April 24 of 2004. Talk about the beautiful people … but alas, the pairing was less than picture perfect as Landry requested an annulment some two weeks later (sparked by Lopez cheating on her during his bachelor party, a rumor he eventually confirmed).
Marriage lasted: 14 days
Funnyman Eddie Murphy might be considered a ladies’ man with his many paramours over the years. This New Year’s union — as it was celebrated in Bora Bora in 2008, it is often considered more symbolic than legal — signaled the beginning of the end, lasting a mere two weeks before the film producer and Murphy split, announcing they would not take the steps to make the French Polynesian marriage fully recognized.
Marriage lasted: 12 days
Oh, dear … last winter, Page Six reported this: “Hollywood producer Jon Peters claimed Monday that his 12-day marriage to Pamela Anderson went bust after he paid off some of the ‘broke’ actress’ debts — adding, ‘There’s no fool like an old fool.’” But in response to Peters’ comments, an Anderson rep told Page Six: “These claims are not only entirely fabricated, they are ludicrous.” It turned into an ugly battle, as multiple sources reported. And it seems a sad end to what appeared to be a romantic tale, as Anderson first dated the onetime celebrity hairstylist some 30 years ago and it seemed to be a case of “at long last.”
Marriage lasted: 9 days
Officially, iconic singer and actress Cher filed for divorce just nine days after marrying rocker Gregg Allman in 1975, reportedly due to his substance-abuse issues. The pair, though, stayed together some four more years, producing a record — and a son, Elijah Blue. When Allman died in 2017, Cher posted sweet tributes via social media.
Marriage lasted: 9 days
Perhaps one of “the” celebrity couples of the 1990s, flamboyant, dramatic and certainly celebrated, this pair’s union was over before even they knew it. A Las Vegas ceremony — reportedly during what People magazine described as “an all-night bender” — found the basketball star Rodman seeking an annulment from the “Baywatch” actress, eventually with a divorce underway within six months.
Marriage lasted: 8 days
Did you even know iconic actor Dennis Hopper was once married to Michelle Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas? Well, you’re forgiven since this was an “if you blink, you miss it” kind of marriage. The duo met on the set of “The Last Movie,” in which Phillips made her film debut. The Mirror reported it was Phillips who wanted out of the October 1970 marriage, citing his “unnatural sex demands.” We’ll leave that one be…
Marriage lasted: 4 days
Actor Nicolas Cage’s marriage to makeup artist Erika Koike — they wed in Las Vegas in March of 2019 after dating for nearly a year — was a shocker, in several ways. As USA Today reported on Cage’s fourth trip down the aisle: “Just days after tying the knot, Cage sought an annulment on March 27, citing reasons that included being too drunk to understand his actions when he married Koike. The 'Face/Off' actor said he and Koike drank 'to the point of intoxication’ before the wedding and argued he wasn’t aware of Koike’s ‘relationship with another person.’” Perhaps a hopeless romantic, Cage wed for the fifth time earlier this year, to a woman named Riko Shibata, 31 years his junior.
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Marriage lasted: 55 hours
Oh, Britney … what a life you’ve led. The pop singer’s current battles over her conservatorship have her front-and-center in the news, bringing her short-lived first marriage to Jason Allen Alexander back into the spotlight. The Las Vegas wedding of the childhood friends in 2004 was quickly deemed a mistake, or as Alexander recently put it, “a joke too far.” But, it’s also come to light — as claimed by Alexander — that it was Spears’ family that forced the annulment.
Marriage lasted: 1 day
It’s okay to be unclear on the details of flamboyant Budapest-born actress and socialite Zsa Zsa Gábor’s marriages. There were nine of them over the course of her 99 years, after all. But the 1983 marriage to Mexican attorney and 1940s/50s character actor Felipe de Alba seemingly takes the cake — lasting only one day. It all went sour when it was revealed her prior marriage to Michael O’Hara was still valid, so this union was annulled — and the couple opted to split. Gábor seemed to have quite a sense of humor about her marital history, dropping gems such as this: “I am a marvelous housekeeper: Every time I leave a man I keep his house.”