Celebrity Relationships That Were Total Rebounds

It's happened to the best of us: following a painful split, we leap into the arms of the first person we set eyes on. As the saying goes, the best way to get over someone is to get under someone. But more often than not, such impulsive trysts end up having a negative effect. As relationship expert Shamananda told Yahoo! Lifestyle, that old adage may not be so true after all. "A breakup is like a kind of death, and you get to honor yourself and go through the grieving process in order to heal properly," she explained. "This process is an act of self-love and it sends a message to your unconscious that you love yourself, which is what you need most right now." 

While getting back onto the dating scene in the immediate aftermath of a breakup may feel empowering and validate one's self-esteem, it can ultimately lead to a sense of vulnerability and greater loneliness, as these celebs found out. We've all marveled at celeb power couples strutting the red carpet in their A-list glory. But beneath the picture-perfect surface, so many factors can result in the demise of even our most beloved celebrity pairings. Stars are only human, after all, and relationships are already messy without the added glare of the media limelight. Subsequently, celebs are not immune to finding themselves on the rebound following messy splits. 

Let's spill the tea and serve it with a slice of shade as we dish on celebrity relationships that were total rebounds.

Dating after the death of a partner is always difficult. When Heath Ledger sadly died aged just 28 in 2008, his ex-fiancée, Michelle Williams, was understandably devastated. A few months after the tragedy, she attempted to find love once again and began dating Spike Jonze, who produced her film "Synecdoche, New York," per the Daily Mail. Williams and Jonze appeared at the Cannes Film Festival together; although the couple exhibited affection toward one another, Williams appeared visibly distressed in the aftermath of Ledger's passing.

After a little over a year together, the couple parted ways. Williams later confessed to Vogue (via Us Weekly) that Jonze was a rebound, with any hopes of a long-term relationship being dashed by the ever-lingering cloud of grief. "The timing was impossible," she reflected. "I thought falling in love again was the only thing that was going to save me from the pain. This erroneous idea: It just makes things more complicated."

In an interview with GQ, Williams admitted that she was desperate to find Mr. Right following Ledger's death because she longed for her daughter, Matilda, to have siblings her own age, something that sadly never materialized. "I wanted that for her," she said. "But I couldn't make that happen. And now that she's 6 that isn't even a possibility anymore. So something that was making me feel impatient, that's been removed." With husband Thomas Kail, Williams has since welcomed two more children, finally giving Matilda the siblings she always wanted.

Although they appeared mismatched at first, supermodel Cara Delevingne and indie musician Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent) ended up being the couple we all stanned in 2014. "I'm completely in love. ... Before, I didn't know what love was — real love," Delevingne gushed to Vogue. "I didn't understand the depth of it. ... Now I know the meaning of life is love." Sadly, this was one romance that wasn't to be, and the pair split up in September 2016. But Clark soon found herself on the rebound with another A-lister.

Pretty much immediately after breaking up with Delevingne, Clark began dating Kristen Stewart. After getting close at a movie screening, the lovers were spotted on a number of dates together, including a dalliance at a comedy show and lunch at a sushi restaurant, per Us Weekly. "It's been very romantic," a source dished. They made their first official appearance as a couple at a Vogue fashion show, with the trendy twosome sitting in the front row. However, they split up a couple months later, with Stewart moving onto model Stella Maxwell.

Speaking to The Guardian in 2017, Clark revealed that she still had Delevingne on the brain, with the baroque singer's album "Masseduction" heavily inspired by the pair's breakup. This perhaps explains her speedy split from Stewart. Subsequently, Clark confessed that she was staving off relationships following the breakup and was in "deep nun mode ... Completely monastic. Sober, celibate."

Hollywood was stunned by the demise of power couple Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt in 2005, in turn being replaced by an even bigger power couple, Brangelina. Aniston was understandably distraught when her hubby began dating his "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" co-star, Angelina Jolie, a tryst that she learnt about through paparazzi snaps, per Vanity Fair. "There are many stages of grief," she told the outlet in the aftermath of the split. "It's sad, something coming to an end. It cracks you open, in a way. ... When you try to avoid the pain, it creates greater pain."

Aniston soon found love again in an unlikely place. Swapping her Hollywood hunk for a frat pack funnyman, she began dating Vince Vaughn. The pair met, rather fittingly, when they made the 2006 romcom "The Break-Up." In an interview with Rolling Stone following the film's release, Vaughn was asked whether it was true that Aniston had a crush on him, to which he apparently replied something along the lines of, "Yeoun-yuhn." Come again?

The pair's romance proved fleeting. In an interview with Vogue, Aniston admitted that Vaughn was a means to an end, having enabled her to get over the heartache of splitting from Pitt. "I call Vince my defibrillator," she joked. "He literally brought me back to life. My first gasp of air was a big laugh! ... He was lovely and fun and perfect for the time we had together. And I needed that. And it sort of ran its course."

Although Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth seemed like a perfect match, they ended up separating in 2019. Cyrus immediately went back into the dating scene and was soon spotted vacationing in Italy with a new love, "The Hills" star Kaitlynn Carter, per ET. The couple was snapped packing on the PDA as they sunbathed, with Hemsworth appearing a distant memory in the Mileyverse. Carter herself had also recently gone through a breakup, having split from husband Brody Jenner. In an essay for Elle, Carter revealed that she and Cyrus found comfort in each other following their respective splits. "It just happened and it felt exactly right," she wrote. According to insiders who chatted to Us Weekly, Hemsworth's allegedly homophobic family members were unhappy with Cyrus moving on with another woman, and he soon filed divorce papers.

After less than two months together, Cyrus and Carter called it quits, per E! News. According to sources, Cyrus was allegedly only looking for a casual fling in the aftermath of her divorce, whereas Carter apparently wanted a more serious relationship. "It went from 0 to 60 and she wanted to put on the brakes. ... She just got out of her marriage and Miley felt like she and Kaitlynn got carried away," an insider claimed. 

In her Elle essay, Carter praised Cyrus for helping her discover that she's sexually attracted to women. "While it was short-lived, I'll remain eternally grateful to my most recent relationship for opening my eyes to this unexplored part of myself," she wrote.

Before settling down with Zawe Ashton, Tom Hiddleston was seemingly the perfect rebound boyfriend. The posh Brit has locked lips with everyone from Kat Dennings to Jessica Chastain. But perhaps one of his most high-profile lovers was Taylor Swift.

Mere weeks after splitting from boyfriend Calvin Harris, Swift began dating Hiddleston, who burst onto the scene as a sort of knight in rebound armor. According to the Los Angeles Times, Harris seemingly took his ex's new rendezvous badly and proceeded to unfollow her on social media. Outlets noted that the pair were moving their relationship along pretty quickly, with Us Weekly reporting that the "Anti-Hero" singer introduced her British beau to her parents not even two weeks later. However, The Guardian heavily criticized the media's depiction of Swift's rebound, highlighting that men are all too often praised for getting back out there, while women are vilified for doing the same.

Their romance was incredibly brief, lasting a mere three months, per Us Weekly. Following the split, Swift appeared to allude to Hiddleston in her song "Getaway Car," in turn seemingly confirming that he was a rebound. The song includes the seemingly shady lyrics, "It was the great escape, the prison break." Ouch. In an interview with GQ, Hiddleston dismissed claims that his romance with Swift was nothing more than a ploy for media attention. "I only know the woman I met," he said. "She's incredible. ... A relationship in the limelight takes work. And it's not just the limelight. It's everything else."

There's no denying that Coldplay frontman Chris Martin seems to have a type: A-list actor. Following his much-publicized split from Gwyneth Paltrow (something that she famously termed a "conscious uncoupling") in 2014, Martin began dating Jennifer Lawrence. The couple was first snapped together following a trip on a private jet that fall, per the Daily Mail. Thereafter, they were photographed on a number of dates, and even attended Harry Styles' 21st birthday bash together. However, many looked upon Martin's newfound romance with skepticism, with some detractors suggesting that the musician was using Lawrence as a rebound.

Soon enough, the couple parted ways. Insiders who chatted to People claimed that Lawrence was irked by Martin's refusal to commit to her, bolstering those rebound rumors. According to Heat (via Independent.ie), Lawrence allegedly later became enraged when she found out that Martin was locking lips with new lady love Annabelle Wallis. "She was pretty p***ed about the whole thing," an insider claimed. "Jen can't believe she didn't see it all along — it looks like Chris was using her to get over Gwyneth. Nobody wanted to think Jen was his rebound girl, but it definitely seems that way now." The source added that Lawrence allegedly felt that her ex had been playing with her emotions and leading her on. 

Following the split, Lawrence went on a little rebound of her own, dating her "Mother!" director, Darren Aronofsky, before breaking up with him after one year, per ET.