Celeb Couples Who Broke Up But Still Worked Together

Even for celeb couples, there's no way around it — going through a breakup sucks. What sucks even worse is going through a breakup when you work with your ex. When a "regular couple" who works together splits, it's reasonable to assume they can sidestep each other. You can awkwardly duck into your cubicle anytime your former flame walks by. You can carefully orchestrate the times you arrive and leave each day so as not to suffer through the deafening silence of a shared elevator. You can avoid the break room like a plague. 

For celebrities, this proves particularly tricky. Can you imagine having to show up to work every day and make out with your ex, or pretend like you're together and happy? Even worse, what if you called off your engagement in real life but had to marry your former betrothed onscreen? 

That's precisely the sort of emotional torture the following celebrities endured when they broke up but still collaborated creatively. And, impressively, many even managed to remain friends after the fact. 

When Nina Dobrev announced in 2015 that she was leaving The Vampire Diaries after six seasons, fans threw a veritable fit. The prevailing speculation? That the actress must be leaving due to her 2013 breakup with costar Ian Somerhalder, whom she met on set and dated for three years. But Dobrev quickly nipped any rumors about drama in the bud, telling E! News, "I've said this before, that we didn't break up because anything bad happened or because there wasn't love or friendship."

The actress — who played Elena, the love interest of Somerhalder's character, Damon — also pointed out that their relationship didn't exist solely in the vacuum of the show, saying, "We were friends long before we dated and we still are now."

While Dobrev did ultimately decide to leave the show prior to its end, she returned for the series finale to give fans closure. And that closure looked like Elena and Damon living happily ever after, even if the actors portraying them had moved on IRL. 

It's said that opposites attract, and that's certainly true of Kaley Cuoco's and Johnny Galecki's characters on The Big Bang Theory. Penny and Leonard are about as different as they come, and yet the quirky onscreen couple fell in love. Off-screen, life imitated art for the eclectic pairing. 

"We dated for almost two years," Cuoco told CBS Watch Magazine (via Us Weekly). "It was such a huge part of my life and no one knew about it." The actress called her time with Galecki wonderful but admitted they both realized they weren't meant to be. "We accepted it and said, 'Look, if we ever break up, we will be professional,'" Cuoco said. "I'm so lucky it was a mutual ending and that we don't hate each other. We've seen that happen on other shows." 

True to their word, Cuoco and Galecki have remained friends in real life — and their characters even went on to get married (twice, no less).

It seemed like a match made in YA movie heaven when Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart fell in love while filming the Twilight franchise. You know, given the fact that their characters, Bella Swan and Edward Cullen, were bound for all eternity. Oh, but 'twas the scandal to end all scandals when K-Stew cheated on R. Pattz with her then-married Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders in 2012. 

Stewart immediately went on the offensive, issuing a statement saying she was "deeply sorry" for the pain she had caused to the people close to her — especially the "most important thing in my life," Pattinson. And, hey, her method of damage control seemed to get the job done. Not only did the couple briefly reunite romantically, but they continued to promote the final Twilight film together after they split for good. 

Pattinson didn't seem to harbor any grudges against his former love in 2014, when he gave a candid interview to Esquire. "S*** happens, you know?" he told the magazine, laughing when asked about the scandal. "It's just young people... it's normal! And honestly, who gives a s***?" 

Can you keep a secret? 'Cause Blake Lively and Penn Badgley can. For the first few seasons of Gossip Girl, they enjoyed an arguably more stable romance than their onscreen alter egos, Serena and Dan. However, they kept it — and their breakup — largely secret. "The shocking thing was, I found out on the set of the Season 2 finale that Blake and Penn had broken up months before," executive producer Joshua Safran told Vanity Fair in 2008. Up until that point, Safran didn't sense any drama with the couple. 

Of course, there had to be, right? Otherwise, they probably wouldn't have called it quits. Badgley hinted as much during a 2015 appearance on Bravo's Watch What Happens Live when a caller asked about his best onscreen kiss. "I'll say it was Blake because we actually had a relationship at the time," he said, continuing with a smirk, "And the worst, maybe Blake after we broke up." 

Don't fret, GG shippers! Badgley added that the two were consummate professionals and "handled it." And in an interview with HuffPost Live, he said the entire cast is all "very close, I think, in our hearts." 

Are they? Aren't they? Who the heck knows. The Office co-stars Mindy Kaling and B.J. Novak continue to keep fans guessing about their romantic status. It's been over a decade since they first started dating — which, coincidentally, occurred around the same time as their characters' romance — and shippers still carry a torch for these two.

It doesn't help that Kaling and Novak refuse to rule out the possibility. In a 2014 interview with People, Novak called his on-again-off-again ex "a really complicated person and a really complicated friendship, but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world." In 2015, Kaling told InStyle that their relationship was best described as a "romantically charged camaraderie with loud arguments" that was "weird as hell."

When Novak tweeted a sweet message about Kaling after her 2018 film, A Wrinkle in Time premiered, Kaling was moved to tears, gushing, "Oh my god I'm like full crying. I will never be mad at you again." To top it off, you could practically hear Office shipper hearts everywhere exploding when Novak accompanied Kaling to the 90th Academy Awards. 

When Brothers & Sisters' producers brought on Emily VanCamp to play the half-sister of Dave Annable's character, they had no idea what a quagmire they were creating. For two people who were supposed to be siblings, the pair wasn't exactly giving fans a familial vibe. Accordingly, it wasn't any huge surprise when that heat parlayed into a romance in real life. 

"I looked like an idiot," executive producer Greg Berlanti told Entertainment Weekly. "Here were two young people who didn't grow up with each other, didn't know each other, but they had this electricity. There was nothing I could do." Well, that's not entirely true — Berlanti and his team rewrote the roles so that the characters, Rebecca and Justin, could explore that chemistry.

When VanCamp confirmed she was leaving the show, she genuinely seemed to wish her ex the best. "I think this will give Dave Annable [Justin] an opportunity to do some different things, which will be exciting for him," she told Entertainment Weekly. Ironically, those different and exciting things included co-starring with Odette Yustman, whom Annable went on to wed in November 2010.