Sandra Bullock And Jennifer Aniston Both Dated This '90s Heartthrob

Jennifer Aniston and Sandra Bullock are undoubtedly one of our favorite pairs of celebrity BFFs. Though the title of Aniston's closest friend in Hollywood arguably belongs to her "Friends" co-star Courteney Cox, Bullock isn't too far down the list. Simply put, these two have been by each other's sides through numerous highs and lows. Not only that, but something you may not know about Aniston and Bullock is that their romantic history actually overlaps, with both actors having dated the same beloved '90s heartthrob at different points in time during that career-defining decade.

Tate Donovan got his big break in the 1990 war film "Memphis Belle," voiced the titular character in Disney's "Hercules" just seven years later, and kept his success rolling into the early 2000s as Jimmy Cooper on "The O.C." But let's not get too ahead of ourselves, because it was back during the first half of the '90s that Donovan began dating Bullock. It all started in 1990, when the two actors met on the set of the rom-com "Love Potion No. 9," which was ultimately released in 1992. They ended up calling it quits around 1994, and Donovan starting seeing Aniston not long after. 

He even went on to guest star alongside her in several episodes of "Friends" in 1998 — though that was also the year that they, too, went their separate ways romantically, which complicated their onscreen romance. There are clearly no hard feelings, though. On the contrary, Aniston and Bullock actually find it rather funny that their respective love stories have a character in common. "We've shared a boyfriend. That's how much we love each other," Aniston quipped to Interview magazine during a joint interview with Bullock in September 2026. "We do," Bullock concurred.

While speaking to People, in 2010, Sandra Bullock cited the need to prioritize herself as the main reason for her split from Tate Donovan. "The person who needed me most was always the person I was attracted to," she explained. "My priorities were him first, me second." And while Jennifer Aniston never gave a specific reason for why her own romance with Donovan fizzled out, she did categorically deny the rumors that it had anything to do with the "Hercules" star being jealous of her fame. As Aniston reasoned to Rolling Stone in 1999, "[B]ecause we didn't give the press anything, they made it up." In any case, all parties involved have since moved on. 

Following his split from the "Friends" star, Donovan got hitched twice. At the time of writing, the "O.C." star's marriage to second wife Corry Scheuerman has been going strong for over 11 years. Aniston has herself been married and divorced twice, to Brad Pitt and later to Justin Theroux. More recently, she started dating a man named Jim Curtis — who has seemingly earned Bullock's stamp of approval. The "Practical Magic" star has only been married once, but her longtime relationship to partner Bryan Randall lasted up until his tragic passing in 2023. 

And while Randall's illness and death were obviously very difficult for Bullock, she did at least have Aniston as her rock amid all the heartbreak. Notably, the longtime BFFs never even would have met when they did if it wasn't for Donovan. "[W]e were introduced by our former boyfriend. I say 'our' because you and I both partook of this one human being," Bullock pointed out to Aniston during another joint chat with Interview magazine, in February 2020.