These two bring new meaning to love at first sight. “I met him in a hotel lobby in New York City and he came in just from the gym [in bike shorts] and I was sitting there and I was, like, ‘Wow,’” Heidi Klum, who was pregnant with another man’s child at the time in 2004, told Oprah Winfrey. “And I pretty much saw everything. The whole package." Ever since, the couple can’t seem to keep their hands off each other. The “Kiss From a Rose” singer was there for the birth of Klum’s first daughter, Leni, and then, the couple married on May 10, 2005. They went on to have three children together and in 2009, Seal officially adopted Leni. That same year, Klum officially took Seal’s last name, Samuel. In 2010, the couple proved the fire was still burning in their marriage, filming the risqué music video for Seal’s song “Secret” together, filled with plenty of nudity, and heavy petting.
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Will Smith met Jada Pinkett in 1990 when she tried out to play his sassy girlfriend Lisa on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Though she lost the part to actress Nia Long (due to her small stature), Pinkett brushed past the 6’2” Smith while leaving the set. He stopped her and asked, “What’s up?” She responded coolly, “Yeah, how you doing?” It wasn’t exactly a sparks-filled start, as she told People magazine, but the two soon discovered they had mutual friends and started hanging out and speaking in more than three-word sentences. Pinkett supported Smith during his split from his first wife, and shortly thereafter, the pair realized they were meant to be. The wed in a lavish, very private ceremony in 1997 and have been together ever since. “We’re constantly surprising each other,” Pinkett Smith told Redbook in June 2009, of their secret to keeping their romance alive. She added a few tips for other longtime couples: “Think of places outside that are comfortable to have sex. Does he have access to his office? Have a fantasy date. Be his secretary! Be sneaky. Your girlfriend's house at a party. The bathroom! A guest bedroom! Just switch it up.”
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Anyone who has seen Walk the Line knows the tempestuous love story behind June Carter Cash and Johnny Cash’s 35-year marriage. They met backstage at Tennessee’s Grand Ole Opry in 1956, when they were both performing at the country music hot spot. The two began singing Grammy-winning duets, like “Jackson,” in the mid-1960s, and during a concert in London, Ontario, in 1968, Cash got down on one knee and asked Carter to be his wife. It was an epic proposal 13 years in the making that led to a wedding a week later at a Kentucky church. Carter and Cash’s marriage lasted until her death in 2003. “If being a wife were a corporation, June would have been the CEO,” Roseanne Cash said at her stepmother’s funeral. “Her loved filled up every room he was in, lightened every path he walked, and her devotion created a sacred, exhilarating place for them to live out their married life. My daddy has lost his dearest companion, his musical counterpart, his soul mate and best friend.” Four months later, Cash also passed away.
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When Hollywood institution Michael Douglas met actress Catherine Zeta-Jones at a film festival in Deauville, France, he said, “I want to father your children.” The Mask of Zorro star calmly retorted, “I’ve heard a lot about you. It’s nice to know it’s all true. Good night.” Though Douglas thought he blew it when Zeta-Jones stormed off, he sent her a bouquet of roses and a note that read, “I apologize if I stepped over the line.” Zeta-Jones told Us Weekly that just “months later, we were dating, and I was already in love with him,” despite being exactly 25 years younger than Douglas. The couple married in 2000 and, true to his word, they’ve since had two children. When Douglas revealed he was suffering from throat cancer in August 2010, Zeta-Jones was by his side every step of the way and he is now cancer-free. “It's made us even closer, and certainly there's a depth of emotion and an appreciation of your daily life that you didn't have before,” the Wall Street star explained to People. In 2010, the couple, at Zeta-Jones’ suggestion, renewed their wedding vows as part of their 10th-anniversary celebration. It was “a wonderful expression of love,” Douglas said.
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The daytime talk-show host and the Arrested Development actress first met in passing in 2000. Although their chemistry was palpable, neither pursued it, which de Rossi told The Advocate was due, in part, to her hesitation to enter a high-profile relationship. “But I really never stopped thinking about her,” she admitted. Then, the pair met again and sparks flew. “I ran into Ellen at a photo shoot [in 2004] and she took my breath away,” de Rossi recalled. “That had never happened to me in my life, where I saw somebody and experienced all of those things you hear about in songs and read about in poetry. My knees were weak. It was amazing.” She added, “When I saw her again that night [at VH1’s Big in ‘04 awards show] we started talking and that’s that. We just were kind of supposed to be together.” In spring 2008, after the California Supreme Court overturned the ban on same-sex marriage, DeGeneres announced on her show that she and de Rossi were getting married. The two wed on Aug. 16 of that year in a small ceremony in their home, with de Rossi taking DeGeneres’ name just last September. “I'm the luckiest girl in the world," Ellen told People at the time.
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Michelle Robinson had just finished her first year at a corporate law firm in Chicago in 1989 when she was assigned to mentor a summer associate named Barack Obama. He was a 27-year-old first-year student at Harvard Law School, the same school the 25-year-old Michelle had graduated from a year prior. “I figured he was one of those smooth brothers who could talk straight and impress people,” she told David Mendell, author of Obama: From Promise to Power. “So we had lunch, and he had this bad sport jacket and a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and I thought: ‘I’ve been down this road before.’” But for one of their first dates (among which was a viewing of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing), Obama took his future wife to a community meeting at a Chicago church, where he “spoke words that have stayed with me ever since,” the now-first lady confessed at the Democratic National Convention in 2008. Michelle was eager to get married after dating for four years, but Barack said he didn’t believe in it. One night over dinner in 1991, they got in an argument about the subject, but everything was settled when dessert arrived with an engagement ring on Michelle’s plate—and the rest, as they say, is romantic and political history.
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Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow met Coldplay frontman Chris Martin backstage at one of his shows in October 2002, just three weeks after the death of her father, director Bruce Paltrow. Though she counted Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck among her former flames, Martin was there to help Paltrow cope with her depression, allegedly penning the ballad “Fix You” for her. When they first met, Coldplay was a little-known British band and Martin didn’t think he had a chance with the A-lister. “This is very weird because she's a big star and I'm just the bloke from Coldplay,” he said. The couple married on Dec. 5, 2003, and had their first child, a girl named Apple, in 2004. Two years later, they welcomed a son, Moses, named after a song Martin wrote that dedicated the song to Paltrow in concert, proclaiming, “This is a song about falling in love with the most beautiful woman in the world.”
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Though they’re now one of the longest-lasting couples in Hollywood, when Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell first met in 1968 as two up-and-coming actors on the set of the film The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band, they were already involved with other people. But as fate would have it, they met again nearly two decades later while filming the 1984 comedy Swing Shift, and have been together ever since. The couple had a son, Wyatt Russell, in 1986, and are parents to three other children from their respective previous marriages, including Oscar-nominated actress Kate Hudson. More than 25 years after their relationship began, Hawn and Russell have yet to marry. “It's not as if we didn't talk about it. We talked about it a lot," Russell told 60 Minutes’ Mike Wallace. "And the bottom line of it was, neither one us really cared. In that regard, Goldie and I don't have much truck with society. We live outside of society to a large degree." Hawn added, “For instance, I don't like the idea of somebody closing a door and saying, 'You can't walk out the door.' I don't like that feeling. Now, if somebody keeps the door open, I could be a bird in that cage forever and never fly out.” Romance is still in the air for the star couple, despite being together for 27 years. They were photographed just last summer enjoying a lovely holiday in Croatia and are gearing up to become grandparents again.
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It all started at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards, where Get Him to the Greek, starring Russell Brand, was shooting some pop-star cameos. The film’s leading man and “I Kissed a Girl” songstress Katy Perry filmed a lip lock and, although the scene was left on the cutting-room floor, the chemistry was evident. Unfortunately, Perry was dating her on-again-off-again boyfriend, singer Travie McCoy. When she returned to the 2009 VMAs, which Brand hosted, she was single, and the two hit it off. Brand claims that he knew it was love from the onset. "I immediately knew that it was either concussion or love,” he explained on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. “After that we went on a date and I was anxious and nervous on the date. Normally like on the first date I'm all right… But this one I felt all anxious like my mind was awash with hallucinogens… I had to hold on to surfaces.” However, Perry made him wait to consummate their relationship, telling Esquire, “Can you imagine the horrible feeling he had when he was used to getting everything he wanted?” Her plan worked—they married on Oct. 23, 2010 in a traditional Hindu ceremony near the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve in India—the same place Brand proposed to his now-wife.
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The legendary Grammy-, Oscar-, and Tony- award-winning singer-songwriter Elton John was introduced to advertising executive David Furnish by a mutual friend at a 1993 dinner in John’s mansion. “He was very well dressed, very shy," John told Parade of their first meeting. "The next night we had dinner. After it, we consummated our relationship. We fell in love very quickly." The two entered into a civil partnership on Dec. 21, 2005, at 17th-century Windsor Guildhall in John’s homeland of England. Afterward, they splurged on an estimated $1.75 million wedding reception awash with vintage pink Champagne and celebrities from Sting to Naomi Campbell to the Osbournes, among others. Nearly five years later to the day, John and Furnish had a baby boy, Zachary—via surrogate—on Christmas Day 2010. "I've never felt anything like it in my life," John told Us Weekly of holding their son for the first time. "You're so awestruck. What can you say? You take it in. The feeling, the joy, the warmth of his body, his breathing... I will never forget that experience ever."
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British soccer legend David Beckham first met Spice Girl Victoria Adams when she attended one of his Manchester United games in 1996. In his book Beckham: Both Feet on the Ground: An Autobiography, he said, “My wife picked me out of a soccer sticker book. And I chose her off the telly ... It felt straight away like we'd always been meant to be together.” The two married on July 4, 1999, at Luttrellstown Castle in Ireland in front of 29 close friends and family. “As they became man and wife, a single dove was released as a symbol of their love. Posh Spice—one of the architects of the 'girl-power' philosophy—stuck to her principles and did not pledge to 'obey' the Manchester United player. The new Mr. and Mrs. Beckham both shed tears after exchanging vows,” the BBC reported. The couple has three sons and is expecting a fourth in the summer, according to Glamour. And despite the growing brood, the passion between them is still alive. In November, Posh told Marie Claire, “He just naturally looks good all the time… Not an ounce of fat on him. And I [think], ‘You done good, girl.’”
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Two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks first met actress Rita Wilson on the set of his sitcom Bosom Buddies in 1981 when she played the love interest of his co-star Peter Scolari. Hanks and Wilson met again while filming the movie Volunteers in 1985, and, although he was already married to Samantha Lewes with two children, he just knew Wilson was the one. “There I am, totally falling in love with Rita,” Hanks told Esquire. “We're deep in the jungles of Mexico…There were great sunsets and sunrises. I look at this picture and feel the spirit of the place—so beautiful and peaceful. It was a magical setting to fall in love and very reflective of our love ever since.” Hanks added, “I did happen to be married at the time. And there's nothing to celebrate about that… But I knew what was and was not. I asked Rita if it was the real thing for her, and it just couldn't be denied.” The couple married in 1988 and has since produced two sons and many films together, most notably My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
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On one “life-changing evening” in 2003, as Demi Moore referred to it in Harper’s Bazaar, the actress was introduced to That ‘70s Show star Ashton Kutcher through friends in New York City. "It was like meeting somebody that I've just known where you just recognize one another,” Moore gushed. “It was so disproportionate, the level of emotion we were experiencing to the time we had spent together.” The fast friends began dating and Kutcher, 15 years Moore's junior, was an immediate hit with her three daughters with actor Bruce Willis, who began referring to him as “ MOD”— “My Other Dad.” Moore and Kutcher were married in 2005 in a Kabbalah ceremony at their home in Beverly Hills and now, six years later, Kutcher and Moore seem like they’re still in the honeymoon phase, sending messages to each other on Twitter constantly. “In some ways, it's no different than sending flowers to the office: You are declaring your love for everyone to see,” Kutcher said in Harper’s Bazaar in December of their tendency to flirt online via Twitpics.
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In 1966, Beatle heartthrob John Lennon met performance artist Yoko Ono at an exhibition in London, where Ono debuted her interactive Ceiling Painting (YES Painting). It wasn’t the only performance piece that would bring the iconic couple together: In 1969, they married in Gibraltar and subsequently hosted a weeklong honeymoon “bed-in” protest for peace at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel. Clad in their pajamas, Ono and Lennon lay in bed discussing peace while people visited and the media broadcasted their protest of the war in Vietnam. These momentous events during the first years of their marriage are all mentioned in The Ballad of John and Yoko. Many blame Ono for breaking up the Beatles, who made their last public appearance in 1969. But the other Beatles supported their relationship; in fact, when the couple briefly separated in 1973, Paul was allegedly instrumental in reconciling the pair. Two years later, they welcomed their first and only son, Sean. “I always knew John Lennon had a very gentle side, otherwise I couldn't live with him," Ono told Rolling Stone in 2010 of her late husband. "He was always very nice to me. But when Sean was born, he was a totally different person, not just nice. He was so much into bringing Sean up.”
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