Celebs Who Never Recovered From Divorce

You know the statistics: 50 percent of marriages end in divorce. The main problem for celebs is that 50 percent of marriages end in divorce publicly. They're not afforded the grace of scream-singing Olivia Rodrigo's "Driver's License" into a pint of Ben & Jerry's like the rest of the free world. Instead, their breakups are immortalized in the tabloids, one paparazzi snapshot of a tear falling into their iced coffee during a walk in Los Angeles at a time.

If the average breakup wasn't already terrible to begin with, it's all the more worse when the whole world is peering in during your divorce proceedings. Still, once the papers are finalized, some celebrities manage to move past gutting heartbreak and land in healthier marriages. At the very least, they may learn how to consciously uncouple in a more productive way that doesn't involve hurling insults through TMZ. Unfortunately, the tabloids are like a haunted house, and the ghost of relationships past will always come back around.

These celebrities have never fully recovered from their high-profile divorces, whether they're still licking their wounds or living in the shadow of their relationship's headlines. How can someone move on if the tabloids won't?

You might think that Ben Affleck's phoenix back tattoo would be his biggest regret. It's so unequivocally terrible that no one really blinked when he lied about it being fake. We'd lie, too, though apparently, he told Ellen DeGeneres that it's "meaningful" and he's "very happy with it" (to each their own). Next up is Gigli, a travesty so critically panned that being blinded by love is the only reasonable excuse it was ever greenlit. The film was, after all, right smack dab in the middle of the original Bennifer. Nonetheless, neither of these decisions are Affleck's worst. That title goes to his divorce from Jennifer Garner.

In a 2020 interview with The New York Times, Affleck called their divorce "the biggest regret of [his] life." The pair were married for 10 years before announcing their separation in 2015, which exacerbated Affleck's drinking problem. Though the actor admitted he's tried to let go of the shame, he still feels some guilt over the whole situation. "I have certainly made mistakes," he told The New York Times. "I have certainly done things that I regret. But you've got to pick yourself up, learn from it, learn some more, try to move forward."

The following year, Affleck was navigating his split from Ana De Armas, and Garner may have been partially to blame. According to a source cited by InTouch, she unknowingly caused tension between the pair because she was reportedly "overbearing" and "interfering at times" as they co-parented their three children.

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By now, Jennifer Aniston has moved on from Brad Pitt. Enough time has passed since their 2005 divorce that both parties have married and divorced again. It's been more than a decade since Aniston told Vanity Fair that Pitt was missing a "sensitivity chip" as he posed for a 60-page W Magazine spread with Angelina Jolie. Tabloids even claim he's since apologized for his behavior. It's all water under the bridge — so why can't we, as a collective society, let it go?

Aniston may have moved on from Pitt, but she's never lived down the tabloid's perception of her as a divorcee. In 2019, headlines were still claiming that "Brad Pitt ruined Jennifer Aniston's life," which unfairly ignores the prolific career that's amassed the Friends alum an estimated $300 million net worth. This doesn't even include their 2020 reunion at the SAG Awards, which was apparently momentous enough that Page Six hired a body language expert to analyze their interaction.

In the past, Aniston has slammed the way tabloids have treated her since her divorce. "It's pretty crazy," Aniston told InStyle in 2018. "The misconceptions are 'Jen can't keep a man,' and 'Jen refuses to have a baby because she's selfish and committed to her career.' Or that I'm sad and heartbroken. First, with all due respect, I'm not heartbroken. And second, those are reckless assumptions." Can we just leave Aniston alone?

When Gavin Rossdale joined the cliche club of Hollywood husbands who allegedly had an affair with the nanny, he probably didn't think about the consequences of cheating on Gwen Stefani, a songwriter whose music is played in every grocery store and mall across America. Even more embarrassing? According to Us Weekly, Stefani found out about the reported three-year affair after Rossdale accidentally synced his private iMessages up to the family iPad — a rookie mistake considering he could've just used Snapchat.

Rossdale and Stefani were the ultimate '90s rock power couple for two decades before they called it quits. At the time of this writing, the No Doubt singer is making plans to marry country singer Blake Shelton, but Rossdale has struggled to move on. In the past, he told The Sun that "divorce is one of the hardest, most painful things to go through." He also told The Guardian that "the gross and lopsided spectre of the crumbling of my marriage" was his "most embarrassing moment."

"I'm not very good at [relationships], I guess," the Bush frontman admitted to People in 2020. "I had a divorce, I had a long-term girlfriend — that went to s**t and I don't have a girlfriend now, even though everyone seems to think I do. You get burned by that stuff ... I don't know, it may be too difficult to combine being a devastating single dad with the attention required for a beautiful girl."

Johnny Depp's messy divorce from Amber Heard was finalized in 2017, according to the Los Angeles Times, but the aftermath has nearly cost Depp his career. The proceedings were an eye-opening look into a terrifying relationship peppered with alleged abuse and wild, drug-fueled claims. The most shocking — like when Depp accused Heard of purposely defecating in their bed — were hashed out in the London courts after Depp sued The Sun for labeling him a "wife beater" in a 2018 article.

Depp has long-denied Heard's abuse claims. According to BBC News, the former couple released a joint statement when their divorce was settled "saying neither of them intended to cause the other any physical or emotional harm." Their volatile moments were "bound by love." Unfortunately, like most abuse cases, it was a matter of he-said, she-said — at least until a judge made a definitive ruling during the libel case, and it did not go in Depp's favor.

According to The Guardian, the judge ruled that 12 of Heard's 14 assault allegations were legitimate, and The Sun's "wife beater" claim was "the substantial truth." During his decision, the judge cited an email in which Depp wished death on his ex. The actor was promptly fired from Fantastic Beasts after the ruling, and one studio head told The Hollywood Reporter, "You simply can't work with him now. He's radioactive."

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or TTY 1-800-787-3224. You can also find more information, resources, and support at www.thehotline.org.

So much has happened in Katy Perry's career that fans forget she was once married to Russell Brand. Their wild Indian wedding seems like nothing more than a tabloid fairytale now that she's the proud mama of a newborn with fiancé Orlando Bloom. Nonetheless, Perry's divorce pushed her into a painful depression, and years later, Bloom finally forced her to face her demons.

Perry and Brand tied the knot in 2010. A year later, the comedian famously dumped the singer in a text message, which she claimed was their last interaction. Following her divorce, Perry fell into her deep depression, but it took almost a decade for her to hit rock bottom. "I became depressed and I did not want to get out of bed," she told Vogue India in 2020. "In the past, I had been able to overcome it, but this time something happened that made me fall down too many flights of stairs. I had to really go on a mental health journey."

According to NBC News, the star went on a weeklong personal growth retreat that kick-started her mental health recovery, but Bloom was really the so-called "sage" that cleansed her spirit. "I've never had a partner who was willing to go on an emotional and spiritual journey like Orlando," Perry told Vogue India. "It's challenging, because you're facing all the things you don't like about yourself. It's like a never-ending cleanse."