Survey Reveals The Celeb Couple People Love To Follow For The Drama

Celebrity couples have been a fixation of the public imagination long before the existence of television, movies, or recorded music. One of the oldest is Cleopatra, the storied Queen of Egypt who lived from 69 BC to 30 BC, and her lover, the Roman general Mark Antony. Talk about scandal — after the death of Julius Caesar, Cleopatra's one-time lover whose Roman military support reinstated her as Egypt's Queen, Cleopatra entered an affair with the married Mark Antony, and their romance produced a child. After Rome declared war against Cleopatra, Antony famously took his lover's side but — in true Romeo and Juliet fashion — was misled to believe that the Queen had perished, resulting in his suicide. In an almost-too-Shakespearean-to-be-true ending, the Queen got wind of Mark Antony's death and took her own life, as well.

They just don't make couples like that anymore, we suppose, and, given the bloodiness, that's probably for the best. These days, after the Golden Age of Hollywood gave us the likes of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor as well as Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, we now have Chrissy Teigen and John Legend, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, and a myriad of reality show-spawned pairings dominating our tabloids.

Nicki Swift conducted a survey of 627 people to find out which celebrity duo they most enjoyed following for their drama. Could it be two of the aforementioned celebs? Read on to find out our survey results!

Justin and Hailey Bieber don't have fans living for the drama

Pop star Justin Bieber and model Hailey Bieber (née Baldwin) were a distant last place in Nicki Swift's survey. Only 9.6% of the people surveyed thought the two were the go-to celeb couple for drama and scandal. This makes sense, as the pair's most controversial moment revolved around Justin and Hailey taking a two-year hiatus from one another, after going from being pals to briefly dating in 2014, reported Elle.

First meeting as teens under cute auspices, with Hailey's dad, Steven Baldwin, introducing the two in 2009 (and reintroducing in 2011), Justin and Hailey did endure some spottiness. After the pair became Instagram-official with a Jan. 3, 2016 photo of them smooching, they appeared broken up just seven months later when Justin was seen arm-in-arm with model Sofia Richie. 

Old flames must die hard — following his dalliance with Richie, Justin and Selena Gomez herself reunited, with "Jelena" reportedly on again in 2017, according to Harper's Bazaar. Alas, the reunion was short-lived and ended in 2018. By the following June, he and Hailey looked cozy again at church together. After TMZ reported the couple got married in September 2018, things have seemed smooth sailing for the pair, even adopting a dog together — "their dogson Oscar," as Justin's December 2018 Instagram called the pooch.

Well, we suppose the on-again-off-again couple's romantic history wasn't so simple, after all!

Elon Musk and Grimes are a dramatic pairing made in arthouse heaven

Clocking in just above Justin and Hailey Bieber, we have one of the most unexpected couples to emerge in the past decade. After Tesla/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and indie singer Grimes made their relationship debut at the 2018 Met Gala, per Insider, the couple has had a rocky romance filled with social media un-followings and re-followings, which would explain why 13.7% of Nicki Swift readers found them to be the couple whose drama they most enjoyed following. 

For a couple who had named their son X Æ A-12, it is fitting that they first met on Twitter in 2018 over a shared fascination with an artificial intelligence thought experiment. After their couple debut, Musk and Grimes hit a speed bump when rapper and Grimes' would-be album collaborator Azealia Banks tweeted about Musk's unsettling behavior while she was at his house, Vox reported. By August 2018, Billboard pointed out, the two had unfollowed one another on Instagram. Come that fall, however, Musk had re-followed Grimes on Twitter and the two were even seen at a pumpkin patch with Musk's children. Aw. 

After a January 2020 nude Instagram photo (naturally) announced Grimes' pregnancy and Rolling Stone confirmed Musk as the father in March, X Æ A-12 was born in May that year, albeit with his name suddenly changed to X Æ A-Xii shortly after. This, CNN speculated, was due to a Californian law requiring names to only contain the 26 letters of the English alphabet. Ah, a charmingly entertaining coupling, indeed. 

Chrissy Teigen and John Legend are an open book

As for Chrissy Teigen and John Legend, who polled fourth at 14.35% on Nicki Swift's survey asking which celeb couple people most like to follow for the drama, their (occasionally, slightly NSFW) relationship highs and sometimes tragic lows have been well-documented, often by Teigen herself. In July 2017, she recalled to Marie Claire (via Cosmopolitan) a conversation with Legend in which they pondered how "every time anyone does anything doggy style, you see a butthole." Teigen said that since that revelation, she had told Legend, "We are never doing it doggy style again." Additional jaw-dropping Teigen-Legend sex life self-reveals include a February 2015 Extra interview in which, when asked about the wildest place in which they have done the deed, Teigen said, "Probably the Obama thing?" to Legend, who replied, "We're not going to discuss that." 

Equally dramatic but far more somber was Teigen's tragic and intimate look she gave Instagram followers at her pregnancy complication, which resulted in her losing the couple's would-be third child in October 2020. "We are shocked and in the kind of deep pain you only hear about," Teigen wrote on Instagram, sharing that they were going to name the child, Jack, and ending things on a positive note. "On this darkest of days, we will grieve... But we will hug and love each other harder and get through it." 

Legend and Teigen are a tough act to follow, but still, two celebrity couples polled higher on the drama-meter. 

Will Kim and Kanye or Cardi B and Offset take the crown?

A distant third place ("Other" was 2nd at just over 18%) were rappers and husband-and-wife Offset and Cardi B, polling in at 14.5% and placing them just above Chrissy Teigen and John Legend. The two are frequent musical collaborators, like in their 2019 single, "Clout." Its music video, which features Cardi B in a fishnet bodysuit affording her husband a lap dance, has over 375 million views. In their personal life, as befitting dramatic sensibilities, Cardi B had filed for divorce from Offset in September 2020 before changing her mind just two months later, BBC reported.

Not shockingly, the headline-making duo of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West topped Nicki Swift's survey of which celeb couple people most loved to follow for the drama, weighing in at a whopping 29.5%. The reality star and the rapper, as of January 2021, are reportedly on the verge of a divorce filing over alleged concerns over West's mental health, according to Page Six. The couple, who married in 2014, have redefined the word "drama" with incidents like that very public feud with pop superstar Taylor Swift, which stemmed from the 2009 VMAs, intensified in 2016 and still lingered in 2020, per USA Today. Kanye West also kept a self-quarantined world entertained by announcing a "self-serving" 2020 presidential bid, to quote Rolling Stone, which he conceded on election night.

Even if Kim and Kanye's relationship is almost over, they've given us enough drama to last a lifetime.