Stars Who Met Their Significant Others Online

Ah, stars! As it turns out, they really are just like us. Well, at least those of us who met our significant others online. As time goes on and online dating becomes less taboo, an increasing number of celebs have come forward to talk about how they found true (and sometimes not-so-true) love online. Read on to see which famous folks have fallen victim to virtual amour—and who has come out the victor.

Amy Schumer

Comedienne extraordinaire and Trainwreck star Amy Schumer has been refreshingly open about meeting her boyfriend, Chicago-based furniture designer Ben Hanisch, on a dating app. In an August 2016 article, Business Insider quoted Amy's description of their digital meet cute from her bestselling 2016 book The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo: "We sent each other very simple hellos and short, funny messages."


Humor was involved? No surprise there.


From the sounds of their first in-person meeting, things were really meant to be. As the Chicago Tribune reported in 2016, Schumer also wrote in her book: "The night I first met Ben in person...it was raining...I got out into the rain, and Ben was standing there, no umbrella or hood, with a soggy paper bag with a bottle of wine in it. We smiled at each other and in that moment, everything felt right."


It's the stuff that rom-coms are made of.

Ricky Martin

In February 2017, Just Jared reported that Latin pop superstar Ricky Martin got real with Andy Cohen on his SiriusXM show about the very visual beginning of his relationship with fiancé Jwan Yosef: "I met my fiance on Instagram. I'm an art collector and he's artist. I wrote to him and then we were talking for like six months without me hearing his voice."


In the interview with Cohen, Martin went on to describe how sparks flew when the pair finally met in person: "We talked about art, nothing sexy, nothing I swear...And then one day I went to London and I met him, game over."


Martin has been living la vida Yosef ever since.

Amber Rose

Back in 2012, Amber Rose was newly engaged to rapper Wiz Khalifa, telling Us Weekly: "Initially we met through twitter...He did an interview about me and the guy who interviewed him asked, 'If there was one girl in the world who would you be with?' He said 'Amber Rose,' — and then I hit him on twitter, and I said, 'That's really cute' and we fell in love!"


The couple did eventually get married in July 2013 and had one son together, but split in September 2014. The good news is, as a source told Us Weekly in February 2017, they've remained "good friends."

Snooki

It may seem like it's been eons since The Jersey Shore was on air, but it wasn't long enough ago that Facebook wasn't on the scene. Back in 2010, cast member Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi found love on the social networking site with Emilio Masella. "We were just talking as friends and we started hanging out and actually clicked," Snooki told Us Weekly when the pair had hit the one-month mark. "All that's important is that we're really happy with each other and I have a good time with him...I love his personality."


Sadly this couple didn't last much longer either, and Snooki went on to marry Jionni LaValle in 2014.

Iggy Azalea

She might be fancy, but she's not too good for a little online flirtation.


In 2013, Australian rapper Iggy Azalea was wooed by NBA player Nick Young when, as Bustle reported in 2014, he "originally got Azalea's attention by tweeting a picture of her with the caption #WomanCrushWednesday." Azalea went on the air for an interview with 101.5 Phoenix, and gushed (via Bustle): "I think he said he had a crush on me on the Internet and we have a lot of the same friends. Our mutual friends started to say to me 'You should meet him! He's actually really nice'...So I ended up meeting him, and he ended up being really nice!"


Alas, this digital dalliance didn't end so happily, and Us Weekly reported that the couple split in 2016 amid cheating rumors.

Ariana Grande

Yet another romance blossomed online in 2012. This time, it was superstar singers Ariana Grande and Jai Brooks. According to Bustle, the couple started dating in July 2012 after Grande's mom showed her a video of Brooks' band, the Janoskians, on YouTube. They didn't meet in person until December that year, when Brooks literally fell on his face in front of her (no kidding; watch the video here).


The couple went on to post numerous Twitter and Instagram posts that proudly put their feelings for each other on display. But it just wasn't meant to be, and Seventeen magazine shared the news of their split in 2014.

Deborah Ann Woll

True Blood actress Deborah Ann Woll struck gold on Match.com, on which she met her long-term boyfriend, comedian E.J. Scott, in 2008.


Although online dating sites have a reputation for users sometimes being less than upfront, it was actually Scott's honesty that first attracted Woll. She told Good Day LA (via The Huffington Post) that Scott, who suffers from a rare eye disease called choroideremia and is legally blind, was open about his condition: "He put it up on his profile, and I thought that was so brave, that he was so open about it."

Carrie Ann Inaba

In 2009, Dancing with the Stars judge Carrie Ann Inaba fell head-over-heels for accountant Jesse Sloan, whom she met on the dating site eHarmony.com.


Wary of online dating at first, Inaba told Access Hollywood Live (via the New York Daily News) that she "didn't put up a picture, [she] didn't put anything about who [she] was." After a few months of emailing back and forth, the couple finally met up in person in the company of friends, and hit it off. Wedding bells were ringing, and Us Weekly reported: "Two years after their first "supervised" date with pals, Sloan, 39, got down on one knee during a March 2011 broadcast of LIVE! With Regis and Kelly and asked Inaba to be his wife." That's one way to pop the question.


The couple didn't end up making it down the aisle, though, and the Daily Mail announced their split in 2012.

Naya Rivera

Like Iggy Azalea and Nick Young, Glee star Naya Rivera and rapper Big Sean kicked things off via Twitter.


Rivera was the first to make a move, telling Perez Hilton in 2014: "I actually started following him on Twitter and I mentioned that I was a big fan. Then some fans started to alert him that I was following him. His assistant happens to be a big fan of Glee, knows my character on the show and knows who I am. So Big Sean became curious and started to ask who I was. A date was set, and it all just happened from there."


An engagement followed, but just as quickly as love bloomed on the internet, it faded, and the Daily Mail quoted from Rivera's book 2016 Sorry Not Sorry, in which she described finding out that the relationship was off: "I learned that I was no longer getting married from the internet, and at the same time as the rest of the world...Not only were we no longer getting married, but apparently we weren't even together anymore."


Ouch.

Essence Atkins

Marlon actress and model Essence Atkins also went with Match.com, and found love with Jaime Mendez. Atkins was initially inspired to go the online route as a way to broaden her dating pool; she told Essence in 2011, "What online dating did was offer me the opportunity to go out with a bunch of different people from different industries, I really didn't want to limit myself with people who are in the entertainment industry. I wanted to date outside of the business but I didn't have a network outside of the industry in L.A."


Atkins and Mendez married in 2009 and became parents to a son in 2011, but, according to Clutch, ultimately decided to part ways in 2016.

Patti Stanger

Hey, even the professionals go digital from time to time.


Matchmaker, author, and former reality show star of Bravo's Millionaire Matchmaker Patti Stanger dated David Krause, whom she met online, for three years, the Daily Mail reported in 2015.


After they split, Stanger told the Mail, "David and I undoubtedly didn't break up because we don't love each other. David is amazing and we remain very good friends...I did feel a lot of love towards him, just not the right kind."

Carla Hall

Chew co-host, Top Chef favorite contestant, and former model Carla Hall found lasting love with her lawyer husband Matthew Lyons on Match.com.


"Online dating sounds like it was pretty much a breeze for Hall," she told BlogHer in 2016, "It does sound woo-woo, but when I look back at my life and about how I met my husband, I believe everything is a lesson. I was on Match for only a week and we met. And that was the man I ended up marrying."


Hootie Hoo!

Ricki Lake

Former talk show host Ricki Lake thought that she'd finally found true love in 2009, when she met a seemingly charming British man online. Although her friends had reservations, Lake enjoyed what online dating offered, as she wrote in a highly personal 2011 piece for Newsweek: "For somebody famous, it's weird anyway to meet someone, because they have a preconceived notion of who you are. There was something anonymous that I liked about being online."


Unfortunately, Prince Charming turned out to be a real frog, and after six weeks of dating, Lake caught him with another woman on Facebook. Lake wrote in Newsweek, "This woman was a friend of a friend, and she had posted a new profile of her cheek to cheek with this guy. I was like, "Oh, my god! He left me and went to the beach with her!" I was in shock."


Luckily Lake saw the light and quickly moved on.

Ben Flajnik

After choosing Courtney Robertson as his winner in the sixteenth season of The Bachelor, Ben Flajnik's relationship fell apart, and he turned to Tinder, The Huffington Post reported in 2015.


Unlike his previous dating choices, this one turned out to be a good decision, and Flajnik met and found love with Stephanie Winn.


Swipe right, indeed.