10 unlikely celebrity couples you didn’t know dated: from Kim Kardashian and Nick Cannon to Lenny Kravitz and Nicole Kidman, Madonna and Tupac Shakur – but which fellow pop star did Taylor Swift date?
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Here are 10 of our favourite celebrity couples you either had no idea existed, or had completely forgotten about …
1. Matthew McConaughey and Janet Jackson
![Matthew McConaughey and Janet Jackson did go out to dinner together, but that seemed to have been the extent of it. Photo: @boshbabexoxo/Instagram](https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/04/22/df9a09cf-f332-4550-8c7c-8172d897cf09_de019856.jpg)
This unlikely pair first hit it off at the 2002 Grammys. However, both acted coy when asked whether they were dating at the time. McConaughey later told Andy Cohen that the pair went out for dinner and “that was sorta it”, while Jackson told The Telegraph in 2006: “I guess we did [date] … It was just for a minute, that’s why I’m so hesitant to mention it”.
2. Sandra Bullock and Ryan Gosling
![Sandra Bullock and Ryan Gosling may seem like an unlikely pairing, but the two dated for a year. Photo: @ryangoslingarmy/Instagram](https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/04/22/c1fd6c36-5d64-4eb4-87f8-13865463fc2c_de019856.jpg)
The first thing you’d be right to notice about Miss Congeniality and Ken is their age difference. Yep, Gosling is 16 years younger, but the cute pair met on the set of Murder by Numbers, per Buzzfeed, and dated for about a year.
3. Chris Martin and Jennifer Lawrence
![Jennifer Lawrence dated Chris Martin after the Coldplay vocalist split from Gwyneth Paltrow. Photos: Instagram](https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/04/22/0d1bbf6d-09c4-41a1-9cbc-803f5ba80c61_de019856.jpg)
After the Coldplay frontman “consciously uncoupled” from his wife of 10 years, Gwyneth Paltrow, in 2014, he dated JLaw for four months. Per People, they broke up but then rekindled the romance in early 2015 where they were seen at Harry Styles’ birthday party together. In the end, Martin decided to put family first, according to People, and Lawrence got tired of him being “non-committal”.
4. Rachel McAdams and Michael Sheen
![Rachel McAdams and Michael Sheen starred in Midnight in Paris together. Photo: @cinemacatsss/Instagram](https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/04/22/86f8bb87-6992-4d61-80bc-7ad40b757720_de019856.jpg)
It’s not often you see low-key Welsh actors dating glamorous Hollywood starlets, but that’s exactly what happened with this unlikely pairing between 2011 and 2013, per Cosmopolitan. “Michael and I never spend more than three weeks apart,” McAdams said at the time.
5. Kim Kardashian and Nick Cannon
![Kim Kardashian and Nick Cannon split because of the leak of her sex tape. Photo: Instagram](https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/04/22/35269482-4e08-40c9-ad28-65282feeecd5_de019856.jpg)
“If she might have been honest with me, I might have tried to hold her down and be like, ‘that was before me’, because she is a great girl,” Cannon told The Howard Stern Show in 2012.
6. Bradley Cooper and Renée Zellweger
![Bradley Cooper and Renée Zellweger never went public with their relationship. Photo: @misterblueeyes12/Instagram](https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/04/22/6233e2c9-c5f5-4380-bcbe-9af42d684f4a_de019856.jpg)
7. Nicole Kidman and Lenny Kravitz
![Other than dating Nicole Kidman (pictured), Lenny Kravitz’s other high-profile relationship is with Lisa Bonet. Photo: @gettyimagesfanclub/Instagram](https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/04/22/6377a12e-7202-4af6-ba97-8f5f4154af33_de019856.jpg)
8. Cher and Tom Cruise
![Tom Cruise and Cher dated in 1985, when the Top Gun star had yet to appear in his biggest films. Photo: @spoiledvenus/Instagram](https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/04/22/59513eea-da70-4dd8-989d-b0acc3a808e0_de019856.jpg)
Speaking of Cruise, the fact that he dated share Cher in 1985 is already mind-blowing enough. The fact that she later referred to him as one of her “top five” lovers on Watch What Happens Live even more so …
9. Madonna and Tupac Shakur
![Tupac broke up with Madonna because he was worried he’d be letting his own people down – referring to her being white. Photo: @2pacunlimited/Instagram](https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/04/22/7c3798ab-2170-4c7e-b199-f662430d3e21_de019856.jpg)
This couple definitely gets filed into the “wait, what?” category. That’s right: in 1994, two years before his death, Tupac and Madonna dated, though the Material Girl only admitted it to Howard Stern in 2015, per Cosmopolitan.
In 2017, TMZ published a letter Tupac sent Madonna from prison in 1995, which revealed he’d broken up with her over her race. “I felt due to my ‘image’ I would be letting down half of the people who made me what I thought I was. I never meant to hurt you,” he wrote.
10. Taylor Swift and Joe Jonas
![Taylor Swift (pictured) and the Jonas brother, who later married and split from Sophie Turner, were briefly a couple in 2008. Photo: @billboard/Instagram](https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/04/22/71f64a1a-6a61-42b0-8eec-94dc74027236_de019856.jpg)
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- Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow were a world famous power couple for more than 10 years, but did you know that Jennifer Lawrence was the Coldplay singer’s rebound?
- Bridget Jones’ Diary star Renée Zellweger secretly dated Bradley Cooper, and Nicole Kidman only let slip that she was engaged to Lenny Kravitz 12 years after the fact