Hollywood is known as the home to some of the world's biggest stars. It's also the place where some of the most scandalous love affairs have burgeoned and blossomed.
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00:00In every Hollywood era, there's no shortage of headline-making romances. From Humphrey Bogart
00:05and Lauren Bacall's legendary Passion to the birth of Brangelina on the set of an action flick,
00:10these are the most scandalous love affairs in entertainment history.
00:151988's Dangerous Liaisons may have been the film that forever typecast John Malkovich
00:20as a conniving villain, and during production there were some real-life parallels going on
00:25behind the scenes. While Malkovich's character was trying to seduce Michelle Pfeiffer's character,
00:29the two actors began an affair that would cause the end of Malkovich's marriage to Glenn Headley.
00:34After their split, Headley apparently called Malkovich, quote,
00:37"...the root of all evil."
00:38Although Malkovich and Pfeiffer's affair ended shortly after it started,
00:41it was a miracle it even began, according to Malkovich. As he later told Rolling Stone,
00:46"...it's hard to believe Michelle Pfeiffer ever said hello to me. Not that she's not memorable,
00:50God knows, but I sort of blocked it out. What I'm trying to say is when I think of the other
00:54person, I don't think of me as involved with them. They're uncorrupted by me,
00:58as if they were never troubled by my existence."
01:01"...it's beyond my control."
01:06"...liar! Liar!"
01:10After Billy Bob Thornton won a Golden Globe in 2017 for his work on Goliath,
01:14Twitter went wild commenting on what appeared to be an awkward moment between him and Laura Dern.
01:19It might have been nothing more than one actor walking behind another,
01:22but the history between these two is hard to ignore, as they were an item between 1997 and
01:271999. At the time, Thornton was quoted by Men's Journal as saying,
01:31"...I'm now happily involved with someone who's my best friend."
01:34But by the end of the year, they were no longer together. So what happened?
01:38Apparently, Angelina Jolie happened. Thornton and Jolie worked together on
01:421999's Pushing Tin, and at some point along the way, that sparked up a relationship.
01:47They married the following year. For Dern, it may have been a bit too sudden to be a coincidence.
01:52Speaking to Talk magazine, she said,
01:53"...I left our home to work on a movie and while I was away,
01:56my boyfriend got married and I've never heard from him again. It's like a sudden death,
02:00for no one has there been any closure or clarity."
02:04When the tabloids spotted Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe holding hands during the filming of Proof
02:09of Life, it created an enormous scandal. Besides the fact that both actors were huge stars,
02:14Ryan was still married to Dennis Quaid at the time. Before the film was released,
02:18Ryan and Crowe tried to avoid prying eyes, but the rumor mill forged on.
02:22They ultimately confirmed their relationship by appearing in public together in July of 2000.
02:27But Ryan insists that her failed marriage to Quaid wasn't because of Crowe or the scandal,
02:32as she told W magazine, that the union had dissolved before the press caught on.
02:36But that didn't stop people from talking. There were questions about Ryan's sweetheart public
02:40image and if it would wear off because of this affair. Even she had to question her
02:44status in the public eye. At the time, she confessed to W magazine,
02:48"...I found myself in a hotel lobby in London a few months ago, thinking,
02:52all of a sudden, so this is what it feels like to be the Scarlet Woman."
02:55Feeling incapable of beginning another long-term relationship,
02:58Ryan ended things with Crowe not long after.
03:02Billy Crudup and Mary Louise Parker were together for seven years after they met
03:06while performing on Broadway. But in 2003, when Parker was seven months pregnant, they split.
03:11The next thing anyone knew, Crudup was with Claire Danes. Crudup and Danes had just finished
03:16filming Stage Beauty, a film about actors who have an affair. The tabloids had a field day
03:20with the scandal. Danes, who was just 24 at the time, was particularly unprepared for the drama,
03:26which she spoke about years later on an episode of The Howard Stern Show.
03:30That was really hard. I didn't know how to not do that. I just was in love with him
03:35and needed to explore that, and was 24.
03:39And heaven have mercy on me.
03:41Good girl. Keep going.
03:43The alleged escapades of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith
03:48dwarfed most celebrity gossip of the past 50 years. Jolie was a veteran of a similar scandal
03:53with Billy Bob Thornton, while Pitt was married to Jennifer Aniston at the time.
03:57The setting was ripe for controversy. While Jolie insists that no physical affair took
04:02place before Pitt's split from Aniston, an emotional connection was formed on set.
04:07As Jolie explained to Vogue,
04:09Because of the film, we ended up being brought together to do all these crazy things,
04:13and I think we found this strange friendship and partnership that kind of just suddenly happened.
04:17I think a few months in, I realized, God, I can't wait to get to work."
04:21When filming wrapped in 2004, they left the set as, quote,
04:24"...very, very good friends," according to Jolie. The following year,
04:28Pitt separated from Aniston and was then officially with Jolie.
04:31And thus began the adventures of Brangelina.
04:34So it speaks, but does it dance?
04:44In 2009, Leigh-Anne Rimes and Eddie Cibrian were filming the Lifetime movie Northern Lights when
04:49news broke out of an alleged affair between the two after they were spotted together at a
04:54restaurant. At the time, Rimes was married to backup dancer Dean Cherame, and Cibrian was
04:59married to model Brandi Glanville. The bond that Rimes and Cibrian formed during filming carried
05:04on after the cameras stopped rolling. Eventually, they both divorced their spouses and got married
05:09to each other in 2011. Rimes later got emotional discussing the affair during an interview with
05:14Giuliana Rancic. She insisted that nothing happened between her and Cibrian outside of
05:19love scenes for the film, but she still expressed some regret with how the whole thing played out.
05:25I've never felt the hurt so deep. And I've never felt the love so deep.
05:30All at the same time?
05:31Yeah, I never knew that could happen.
05:34In 1972, shortly after they were cast in The Getaway, Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw started a
05:40relationship that wore out the ink on tabloids across the country. McGraw was a rising star who
05:45had recently married producer Robert Evans. McQueen was Hollywood's iconic bad boy. McGraw later told
05:51Vanity Fair,
05:52"...it was very, very passionate and dramatic and hurtful and ecstatic. It was pretty much a wipe
05:58out for both of us. But I think it's safe to say it would have been impossible not to fall in love
06:02with Steve."
06:03After the film, McGraw divorced Evans and married McQueen, and even paused her career for him.
06:08It wasn't until after their 1977 divorce that she returned to the big screen with the 1978 film
06:15Convoy.
06:16Steve McQueen is dead for 30-some-odd years. I always thought he'd leave me.
06:21I mean, it was this absurd — I don't know what I thought, except that I wasn't real."
06:28The casting of Elizabeth Taylor in the title role of 1963's Cleopatra was not without some
06:34controversy. She hadn't yet lived down her reputation as a homewrecker from an earlier
06:39affair with Eddie Fisher, and some people at 20th Century Fox were unsure if the risk was
06:44worth the price. They ultimately moved forward with casting Taylor, but it turned out that
06:48their fears were grounded. Even with Fisher on location in Rome, Taylor and her co-star Richard
06:54Burton, who played Mark Antony, started one of the most talked-about affairs of the century
06:58during production. While taking a break from filming in 1962, Burton and Taylor were snapped
07:04lounging together aboard a yacht. The published photos sent the public and the paparazzi into a
07:09frenzy for more. The scandal was inescapable. Members of the press followed them at every
07:14turn, even posing as extras to get inside information. The Vatican even publicly condemned
07:19the relationship. By 1963, their relationship was public, and the film was finally released.
07:25Early in 1964, mere days after she divorced Fisher, Taylor and Burton were married. They
07:31divorced in 1974, remarried in 1975, and then divorced again in 1976.
07:38Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall are now remembered as one of Hollywood's greatest
07:42couples, but their romance wasn't without its victims. For one, Bogart was married to actress
07:47Mayo Methot when he started shooting To Have and Have Not with Bacall in 1944.
07:53As Bacall recalled to TCM, she was so nervous during her first scene with Bogart that she
07:58couldn't stop shaking. It was his patience with her that initially caught her attention.
08:02Their off-screen chemistry soon took on a new life that led to changes in the script that
08:07leveraged their blossoming relationship. Despite his feelings for Bacall, Bogart apparently decided
08:12to try and work things out in his struggling marriage. Methot was battling alcoholism and
08:16made a failed attempt at rehab before she and Bogart finally split. During this time,
08:21the private relationship between two of Hollywood's biggest stars made for some
08:25incredible gossip. In 1945, Bogart and Methot divorced, and then Bogart and Bacall married.
08:32You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.
08:37The love affair between Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini began with a simple letter
08:44in which Bergman wrote,
08:45"'Dear Mr. Rossellini, I saw your films Open City and Paisan and enjoyed them very much.
08:51If you need a Swedish actress who speaks English very well, who has not forgotten her German,
08:56who is not very understandable in French, and who an Italian knows only,
09:00ti amo, I am ready to come and make a film with you."
09:03From this came the suggestion to make the film Stromboli. As Bergman and Rossellini
09:07pitched the movie to producers and secured financing, their relationship grew.
09:11They traveled together throughout Italy prior to shooting,
09:14much to the dismay of Bergman's husband, Peter Lindstrom. According to the Bergman biography,
09:19As Time Goes By, Rossellini seemed open to creating a scandal while shooting the film.
09:24He was happy to be photographed holding hands with the beautiful actress,
09:27and he even gave the press inside knowledge of her broken marriage.
09:30Before Stromboli was finished shooting, Bergman was pregnant with Rossellini's child,
09:35and the truth of the affair was all over the American airwaves. She was ostracized from
09:39the American film industry and wouldn't return to favor for more than seven years.
09:45Frank Sinatra was no stranger to affairs. He was even arrested on charges of adultery in 1938.
09:51The famous crooner married his first wife, Nancy, in 1939, and they had three children together.
09:56But in 1948, he and actress Ava Gardner started what would become a legendary affair. It wasn't
10:03until 1950 that the world found out about them, as Sinatra was labeled a cheater and Gardner,
10:08a homewrecker. While Gardner was vilified for her role in the affair and considered a gold digger,
10:13the scandal hurt Sinatra's career most. According to the book Sinatra Behind the Legend,
10:18his show started suffering, he lost his recording contract, and his voice was failing.
10:22In 1951, after Nancy gave him the divorce he sought,
10:26he married Gardner. Their union, however, would be marked with great challenges. They battled
10:31publicly, and Gardner had two abortions. Their relationship ended in 1953,
10:35with the divorce finalized in 1957.