Celeb Relationships That Started With A DM Slide
Yo Gotti was absolutely right when he declared "It goes down in the DM." According to a study done by Stanford, 39% of couples now report having met their partner online, a massive jump from the 22% who owned meeting their partner online back in 2009. And while that percentage largely references couples who met through dating apps like Hinge, Tinder, and Bumble, it also includes those who used social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Tinder to connect. Believe it or not, it's not just ordinary folks who are meeting potential partners online, celebrities are doing it too.
There are plenty of celebs, like Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan, who have been outspoken about having used dating apps to help them find the one. But there's also a whole other cohort of famous folks who have used good old-fashioned social media to connect with potential romantic partners. Today, we're focusing on those individuals. Each of the celeb relationships on our list started with a DM. From Nick Jonas to Dua Lipa, read on to find out which of your favorite stars risked it all and sent that flirty message.
Sarah Hyland and Wells Adams
You may have assumed that their shared network would be the link between these two stars, but you'd be wrong. "Modern Family" actor Sarah Hyland and "Bachelor in Paradise" bartender Wells Adams didn't meet through an ABC function, but rather through a Twitter DM.
On "Jimmy Kimmel Live," Hyland revealed that Wells was the one who made the first move. "Have you seen those memes of like 'slide into the DMs'?," she asked the host, "It was that ... He slid into my DMs." Continuing, "We had tweeted each other because I thought he was funny and he was a fan of the show ... I was single, obviously, and I was like this is really awesome." She went on to talk about how much she appreciated his forward approach, finding it sexy and confident but not too aggressive. Not long after that first virtual interaction, the two went on their first date (tacos and tequila, according to Hyland) and the rest was history.
Adams stood by Hyland while she struggled with her kidney dysplasia, calling her a "real-life wonder woman" and praising her strength in dealing with the serious health scare. In 2019, the cute couple got engaged, and in August 2022, following several COVID-related delays, they finally tied the knot. Their wedding, which was officiated by Hyland's co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson, was a huge celebrity affair with dozens of their co-stars and famous friends in attendance.
Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra
In the early '00s, many teenage Jonas Brothers fans harbored this secret fantasy that the youngest member of the trio would spot them in the audience of a show or walking down a city street, and, desperate to know them better, reach out via social media. In these fantasies, he'd be so taken with them that a real, enduring relationship would begin and they'd quickly become the next JoBro wife. For Priyanka Chopra, that's almost exactly what happened.
In an interview with Vogue, Jonas revealed that he'd first seen Chopra in "Quantico," an FBI drama she starred in for three seasons. Smitten with her, he texted her co-star, who seems to have suggested Jonas reach out to her directly over social media. Which he did, DM-ing her on Twitter, "I'm hearing from a few mutual friends we should meet." Chopra's response? To gently chastise him, reminding him that her entire team could read the messages he was sending. Fortunately, she got over his transgression quickly and sent him her number so that they could chat more privately.
The pair spent the better part of the next two years getting to know one another over the phone. Their respective busy schedules prevented them from spending too much time together in person, but that doesn't really seem to have mattered much because just two months after they went public with their relationship they were engaged. The lovebirds tied the knot in December 2018, and welcomed their first child, a daughter, in 2022.
Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner
Interestingly, Nick Jonas isn't the only brother to have met his spouse via a DM. His elder sibling, Joe Jonas also hit it off with his wife, "Game of Thrones" star Sophie Turner on Instagram.
In an interview with Harper's Bazaar UK, the actor opened up about the unconventional start of her relationship. "We had a lot of mutual friends, and they'd been trying to introduce us for a long time. We were following each other on Instagram and he direct-messaged me one fine day, out of the blue." A few months after that first exchange, they met in person at a pub in England as Jonas passed through on tour. In another interview, Turner revealed that she wasn't expecting to actually like Jonas all that much (maybe his DM-ing left something to be desired?), but wound up hitting it off with him immediately.
The couple made their relationship official in 2019, with a surprise Vegas wedding. A few months later, they had a bigger, more formal ceremony, with all of their friends and family in attendance. Today, they share two daughters and seem more in love than ever before. "With Joe, I always felt like I was the one who was punching, like, way above my league. And I still feel like that," Turner told Elle Magazine (via People). "He's so handsome, talented, funny, charismatic. I'm really lucky to be with him and have someone like him want to be around me and spend time with me."
Vanessa Hudgens and Cole Tucker
One of Sarah Hyland's bffs, Vanessa Hudgens, also met her beau over DM. The "High School Musical" actor was first introduced to her MLB player fiance over Zoom during the pandemic. In an interview she did with ET, she explained that they both started attending the same virtual meditation group during quarantine, needing a way to center themselves amid the craziness of the early covid years. While they regularly attended meetings, the public nature of the group didn't lend itself to forming a more intimate connection. So Hudgens did what anyone in her situation would do, and went to Tucker's inbox.
In an appearance on "The Drew Barrymore Show," Hudgens told the whole story, including how she was the one to reach out first. "I'm such a go-getter," she said. "If I want something or someone, I'm going after 'em. I fully just slid into his DMs and was like, 'Hey, it's nice to meet you.' I think there's no shame in making the first move. If you want it, why wait for someone else to give you what you want?" Her gutsy approach worked, and near the end of 2020, the two were publicly linked for the first time.
In early 2023, the pair took to Instagram to announce their engagement. While they don't seem to have set a wedding date as of this writing, we can't wait to watch them walk down the aisle. It's sure to be a Pinterest-worthy wedding.
Dylan Sprouse and Barbara Palvin
Another former Disney channel star, Dylan Sprouse also used social media to land the girl of his dreams. The "Suite Life of Zack and Cody" actor and his supermodel girlfriend Barbara Palvin tend to prefer a quieter life outside of the direct light of the spotlight, but they have shared a few details about their relationship over the years, including how they met.
In a dual interview with W Magazine, Sprouse said that he was first introduced to Palvin at a party. A few days after the party, Palvin added Sprouse on Instagram. "She followed me, so I was like, I guess I'll give her something. And I slid into her DMs," the actor told the outlet. "I was like, 'Hey, I don't know if you're in New York for very long, but we should hang out if you want to. Here's my number.' And she didn't message me for six months." Eventually, she did text him back, and after three months of talking, she flew to China (where he was shooting a movie) for their first in-person date.
Palvin told People she knew she wanted to be exclusive with the actor "the first minute we met," but made him wait an entire month before she'd agree to be his girlfriend. The pair have been together ever since, walking red carpets and showing up in support of one another's various endeavors. In early 2023, a huge diamond sparkler that appeared on Palvin's left hand sparked a flurry of engagement rumors, but the couple has yet to confirm them, as of this writing.
Ricky Martin and Jwan Yosef
"Livin' La Vida Loca" singer Ricky Martin's relationships and sexuality were front and center for so long, it's no wonder he's become so tight-lipped about his love life over the last decade. So while we don't know tons about his current relationship with artist Jwan Yosef, we have uncovered a couple of pivotal details, including the fact that they met over DMs.
In a radio conversation with Andy Cohen (captured by People), Martin revealed that he found Yosef on Instagram. "I'm scrolling and I see this beautiful piece of art and I'm like, 'Whoa, how cool! Who's this?'," he said. "Then I start checking and all of a sudden I'm like, 'Ooh, ooh.' And then I wrote to him. Then we were talking for like six months without me hearing his voice. We talked about art — nothing sexy ... I swear, nothing sexy. It was all about art and life in general. He used to live in London, I went to London and I met him."
Just over a year later, the couple got engaged, and in 2018 they made things official with a private ceremony. Now parents to four kids, the pair don't often make public appearances together, but they do share the occasional glimpse of their private lives on Instagram, which seems only fitting all things considered.
Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor
Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor have a love story that's been decades in the making and involves everything from missed connections to Twitter DMs.
In an appearance on "Watch What Happens Live," Paulson told Andy Cohen that they had first met years prior at a friend's dinner party. While neither actor was romantically available at the time, they both took note of the other. Years later, their paths crossed again while working on a project. "We were doing a thing at [actress] Martha Plimpton's house," Paulson said. "It was for an organization that she was working with and we were both doing a little PSA for it. We sort of breezed by one other and then started following each other on Twitter... and then..." And then Holland Taylor reached out via DM.
While Paulson didn't tell Cohen what exactly her girlfriend said in that message, it clearly caught her interest. The two stepped out together as a couple for the first time in December 2015, and haven't left each other's sides since then. For her part, Taylor has said that her relationship with Paulson is "part of what has to be the most wonderful thing in my life" (via People). Continuing, "This wonderful relationship ... makes everything else makes sense, I'm the luckiest person in the world. I can't talk about my life today and not mention this wonderful love."
Mandy Moore and Taylor Goldsmith
Following a rough divorce from her first husband, Ryan Adams, in the mid-2010s, Mandy Moore was ready to find love again as the decade came to an end. And while she was open and looking for romance, she likely didn't expect to stumble across where she did.
In an interview with People, the "This Is Us" actor admitted that she met her new love, musician Taylor Goldsmith, on Instagram. "I took a picture of [Dawes'] album and posted it on Instagram. Somehow, Taylor saw it and sent a note to me. We started emailing back and forth, then we went on a date and the rest is history," she told the outlet. Continuing, "We spent hours FaceTiming each other. We fell in love before we'd even really held hands or kissed or anything. It was great... Thanks Instagram, for helping me meet my fiance!"
In 2017, almost two years after she first posted that fateful picture, Moore and Goldsmith got engaged. A year later, they tied the knot in an intimate backyard wedding, saying their vows in front of just 50 of their closest friends and family members. Now the parents of two, the musically gifted couple (who also released a single together in early 2022, between pregnancies) seem happier than ever.
Winnie Harlow and Kyle Kuzma
NBA player Kyle Kuzma had to DM model Winnie Harlow not once, but twice before she noticed him. During an appearance on "The Ellen Show," the "America's Next Top Model" contestant told guest host Stephen "tWitch" Boss, "I got a DM a year prior from [Kuzma] and I'd never seen it. I don't know what the glitch in the system with Instagram was, but it never came up for me. A year later, at the top of quarantine, he DM'd me again. He posted a picture of me ... and I was like 'Oh, hi.' ... He shot his shot ... and we just kind of started talking from there." The model went on to share that after a month of incessant FaceTiming, she flew (on a private jet he chartered) to LA to visit him. The visit clearly went well, judging by the fact that Harlow never wound up leaving LA.
The cute couple celebrated their second anniversary in April 2023. Their various social media accounts are littered with pictures of each other, and by all accounts, they seem just as smitten with each other as they were when they first met.
Amber Riley and Desean Black
While many of the relationships on our list have had happy endings, not all of them have been quite as successful. Take "Glee" actor Amber Riley and her ex-fiance Desean Black, for example.
In a now-deleted Instagram post, captured by Page Six, the actor went public with the relationship and shared how she met her then-boyfriend. The photo was a screenshot of an Instagram DM where she had written, "Hey Desean, how are you?" and he replied, "Hey beautiful I'm doing great how are you???" It seems that simple exchange was all it took to get the ball rolling, and the romance blossomed from there. In 2019, the couple got engaged, sharing the happy news on the app where they first met. "There was a time when I thought I didn't want or deserve this kind of love. I'm looking at a man who changed my mind. My time by myself, loving on myself, getting comfortable with myself, prepared me for you, and prepared me for this. I am so proud to say, I am the future Mrs. Black," she wrote alongside a now-deleted picture of the happy couple.
Unfortunately, the duo called off their engagement in April 2022. Riley insists that the split was amicable and that there are no hard feelings between the pair.
Elon Musk and Grimes
You almost wouldn't expect tech bro and current Twitter owner Elon Musk to begin a relationship anywhere else but the DMs. And that's exactly where he kicked things off with his on-again-off-again girlfriend, Grimes.
According to an insider who spoke to Page Six, the tech mogul reached out to Grimes on Twitter in early 2018. He'd apparently been planning to make a bizarre joke about artificial intelligence that involved both the thought experiment Roko's Basilisk and an 18th-century ornate decorating style when he discovered that Grimes had already beat him to the punch — three years earlier. That was all it took to convince him that they shared similar interests, so he messaged her. Grimes was psyched he'd caught the reference (unsurprisingly, no one else seemed to have ever figured out what she was talking about) and things went from there.
The duo made their first public appearance at the 2018 MET Gala, breaking up and making up multiple times before they welcomed their first child two years later. They welcomed a second child in late 2021, but their relationship status these days remains unclear.
Quavo and Saweetie
Once hip hop's golden couple, Quavo and Saweetie dated from 2018 to 2021. Surprisingly, given their individual successes, the pair didn't meet at an industry event or in the studio, but over Instagram.
In 2020, Quavo posted a screenshot of their first interaction to his Twitter. The Migos rapper DM'd his boo a snowflake emoji (a reference to her song "Icy Girl") and she replied with a bowl of ramen emoji (a reference to one of Migos' songs). He followed that up with what's perhaps one of the smoothest pickup lines of all time— "u so icy Ima glacier boy"— to which she simply replied, "was hannin then." In an interview with GQ, the couple expanded on their meet-cute story. "I seen her on my Explore page," said Quavo. "I was like, 'Damn! Who is this?' So I did my research and I DM her. I was like, 'How she going to call herself icy and she don't talk to me?' So I slid in her DM." After talking on the phone for months, they finally went on a first date in late 2018.
But by 2021, things had run their course, and the couple officially split. During the breakup, Saweetie hinted that Quavo hadn't been faithful, tweeting, "I'm single. I've endured too much betrayal and hurt behind the scenes for a false narrative to be circulating that degrades my character. Presents don't band aid scars and the love isn't real when the intimacy is given to other women."
Dua Lipa and Anwar Hadid
In their heyday, Dua Lipa and Anwar Hadid were a Gen Z it couple. The "Don't Stop Now" singer and the male model were everything 20-somethings aspired to be— attractive, successful, and incredibly stylish. So it shouldn't be surprising that they met in a very generationally appropriate way.
On an episode of "Watch What Happens Live," Lipa told Andy Cohen that her relationship with then-boyfriend Hadid started on social media. Apparently, the pair were first introduced at a backyard bbq, but didn't wind up exchanging details that night. A few days later, Lipa slipped into Hadid's DMs, making her interest clear and things took off from there.
The couple made their red carpet debut in November 2019, then spent all of the early days of covid together quarantining in London. Talking to People, Lipa said that the extra time had been a blessing. "It's been really great — easy and fun and chill. We've been making the most of this because we got all this extra time that we weren't expecting to just hang out. It's been an absolute blast, and we're learning so much more about each other." However, once the world opened up again, and their schedules started to pull them in opposite directions, things took a turn. In 2021, the pair announced they were taking a break as distance had made things much harder, and in 2022 Lipa officially announced she was single, signaling the fact that things were over with Hadid for good.
Madelaine Petsch and Travis Mills
Since she joined the cast of "Riverdale" Madelaine Petsch's star has been on a steady rise. So it makes sense that when she started dating musician Travis Mills, back in 2017, her fans were obsessed with learning everything they could about the new relationship, including how the couple met. And Petsch was more than happy to give up all the details.
In an interview with Cosmopolitan, the actor told the whole story: "He messaged me on Facebook in January of season one and congratulated me on the show. He had auditioned for Jughead. I think we just randomly had mutual friends, so we added each other. We kept in touch very rarely, not even that much, from January to February, and then the day I got back from season one in February I was bored in L.A., believe it or not. I was like, 'What am I gonna do?' I got my hair cut and he texted me like, 'Let's go to a movie!' We hung out and spent every single day together that I've been in L.A. since then, since February."
Unfortunately, the love didn't last, and in February 2020, the couple split. In a lengthy Instagram post, Mills shared the news with fans, writing, "While I'm holding back tears I'm excited to see what you do next. I'll always have your back."