The Cheating Scandals Hollywood Turned A Blind Eye To

One of the most notoriously iffy affairs in the history of Hollywood, Woody Allen's relationship with Soon-Yi Previn was back in the spotlight in 2016 after the director decided to discuss it while promoting his film Cafe Society. Previn is the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow and came to know Allen when he and Farrow were an item. The two began an affair behind Farrow's back and went public with it in 1992, with Allen releasing a statement confirming that it was "real and happily all true."

The enigmatic New Yorker went on to marry Previn and they have two children together; and while he did face some criticism over his actions in the years that followed, Allen simply ignored the haters. "I was immune," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "I worked right through that, undiminished." He carried on making films at the rate he always had done, and Hollywood stars continued to line up to take part in Woody Allen projects, just like they do today.

While the powers that be in Tinsel Town seems happy to accept Allen's eccentricities as a part of his genius, some commentators are not so willing to ignore them. The director was heavily scrutinized for comments he made about Soon-Yi as recently as 2015, claiming that the 35-year age gap between them actually helped their relationship blossom. "I was paternal," he told to NPR. "She responded to someone paternal."

When an US Weekly exclusive claimed that Ben Affleck had been having an affair with the nanny of his children behind wife Jennifer Garner's back, it was the beginning of the end for one of Hollywood's longest running marquee couples. The magazine talked to a friend of childminder Christine Ouzounian, whom they claim was fired from her post when Garner realized something was going on. "They would hang out without the kids," the unnamed source said. "And they were very flirty."  

Affleck's reps denied there had been any romantic involvement between himself and Ouzounian, while Garner seemed to confirm that wasn't true when she spoke to Vanity Fair. "We had been separated for months before I ever heard about the nanny," the actress revealed. "She had nothing to do with our decision to divorce. She was not a part of the equation." She then went on to throw shade on Affleck for the media storm that he created. "Bad judgment? Yes. It's not great for your kids for [a nanny] to disappear from their lives."

The same outlet that broke the news of Affleck's supposed infidelity with Ouzounian recently accused the actor of also carrying on an affair with Saturday Night Live producer Lindsay Shookus while still married to Gardner. Whether there is any truth to these claims is not known, but scandalous headlines haven't seemed to harm the Batman v Superman star's standing. Put simply, he's a big name in Hollywood, but Garner? Not so much anymore.

Like fellow director Rupert Sanders, Robert Rodriguez was married with children when he supposedly entered into a relationship with Planet Terror leading lady Rose McGowan. The Mexican-American helmer made his early films alongside his wife Elizabeth Avellán, with the two becoming known as "the power couple of Texas film" in their home state, idolized for pioneering "the new Latino cinematic sensibility." Avellán was even a producer on Planet Terror, the film that would ultimately bring their long union to an end.

According to a Variety report, production on the film (which was released as a double-feature with Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof under the title Grindhouse in 2007) was suspended for a month when Avellán discovered her husband had fallen for McGowan. "It was the worst-kept secret on the set," a Page Six source explained. "They were going off to his trailer, having meals together. Rose thought some of the crew were treating her differently, and the attitude was, like, 'Well what do you expect when you're [sleeping with] the director?'"

While McGowan fell out of love with Hollywood soon after the scandal (she later claimed to have been raped by a studio head and said she was "shamed" in Tinsel Town as a result), Rodriguez was able to ride it out. He went on to add a fourth film to the Spy Kids franchise, started the Machete series and recently directed a live-action adaptation of Yukito Kishiro's manga Battle Angel Alita, due out in 2018.

Hugh Grant essentially invented the hold-your-hands-up approach to dealing with a cheating scandal. The British star made headlines the world over when he was caught soliciting prostitutes in 1995, arrested by authorities in Los Angeles for "lewd conduct in a public place." Grant had just become a household name after leading the line in the critically acclaimed Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), though his clean-cut image took a major blow when he paid Divine Brown for oral sex in his car.

"Last night I did something completely insane," he said in a hastily prepared, but highly effective statement. "I have hurt people I love and embarrassed people I work with. For both things I am more sorry than I can ever possibly say." Grant was romantically involved with actress Liz Hurley at the time, making his transgression all the worse. His humility seemed to work in his favor, however, and before long it was all brushed under the carpet. Years later, the actor revealed the real reason it all just went away.

Grant was actually in Hollywood promoting a movie called Nine Months when he met Brown, and as soon as the studio saw the numbers were good, all was forgiven. "Hollywood only minds about money," he told CBS in 2016. "And that film did fine, the film that was coming out at the time. And yeah, that's all that really matters: As long as you make them money, they don't care what you get up to."

In August 2017, the public was introduced to superhero movie kingpin Joss Whedon's alter ego, at least according to his ex-wife, who claims he was unfaithful with several women in the workplace. Whedon is the director behind Marvel's massive Avengers franchise and is also shepherding DC blockbuster Justice League, so both Disney and Warner Bros. would probably like to sweep that chatter under the red carpet. 

Ex-wife Kai Cole, who was married to Whedon for 15 years, dished about the director in an August 2017 guest blog for The Wrap. "There were times in our relationship that I was uncomfortable with the attention Joss paid other women," she wrote. "He always had a lot of female friends, but he told me it was because his mother raised him as a feminist, so he just liked women better." Cole admitted that she had planned to keep quiet about Whedon's multiple infidelities, until he started garnering praise as a feminist.

"Publicly people only know his superficial presentation of us: him as the lovable geek-feminist and me in the background, as his wife and supporter," she wrote. "I want the people who worship him to know he is human, and the organizations giving him awards for his feminist work, to think twice in the future about honoring a man who does not practice what he preaches."

A spokesperson for Whedon claimed Cole's account of their relationship was full of "inaccuracies and misrepresentations" and said the director was respectfully declining to comment.

Long before Hollywood was turning a blind eye to Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, they were doing the same thing over her snatching Billy Bob Thornton away from Laura Dern. The Jurassic Park star was as surprised as anyone to learn that he had run off to marry Jolie, seeing as she was engaged to him at the time  "I left our home to work on a movie, and while I was away, my boyfriend got married, and I've never heard from him again," Dern told Talk magazine (via ABC). "It's like a sudden death."

While Dern will be featured in the upcoming Star Wars installment The Last Jedi, blockbuster appearances have been few and far between in the years since she was dumped, with the actress plying her trade largely in TV shows and indie flicks. Thornton went on to successfully exploit his likable jerk image in Bad Santa, whereas his new wife rocketed to international stardom playing Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider adaptation, neither one hampered by their affair.

The Pushing Tin co-stars filled countless column inches with their antics over the three years they were married, having sex in limos on the way to awards shows and wearing vials of each other's blood around their necks. They started to grow apart as Jolie's interest in humanitarianism grew and she became involved with the UN. "I never felt good enough for her," Thornton admitted to GQ. "I'm real uncomfortable around rich and important people."