From friends to lovers! Blake Lively & Ryan Reynolds, Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher & more celebrity romances

Inside the love stories of the Prince and Princess of Wales, Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker and more

The foundation of any relationship is friendship, so it comes as no surprise that some of our favourite celebrity couples’ love stories began as friends. From Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds’ double date with other people to Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton’s meeting on The Voice and Prince William and Princess Kate’s University fairytale, see the sweet stories about how celebrity friendships turned romantic…

Justin & Hailey Bieber

Hailey Bieber’s father Stephen Baldwin introduced her to Justin Bieber in 2009. During his on-off relationship with Selena Gomez, they remained friends with Hailey even describing their relationship as a “teenage dream” on X (formerly Twitter.)

Hailey and Justin dated briefly in 2016, but the Baby singer rekindled his romance with Selena in 2017. By the following year, they had ended their relationship and Hailey and Justin got back together.

Hailey told Elle: “We were friends first for a really long time before there was anything romantic. But we always knew that we were aligned on what we wanted in our future. We had talked about wanting to be married young and having a family young and building a life. Even before we knew we wanted to be with each other.”

They had a whirlwind wedding, with the couple announcing their engagement in July 2018 before getting married in a New York courthouse just two months later, followed by a bigger celebration in South Carolina in 2019.

Gwen Stefani & Blake Shelton

The Voice coaches met on the singing competition in 2014, but they grew close after their respective divorces – Blake Shelton ended his marriage with Miranda Lambert in 2015, and Gwen Stefani split from Gavin Rossdale in 2016.

Blake told Billboard: “That’s kind of how our friendship and bond started, that day. It went from that, to checking in on each other once a week through email – ‘This [expletive] happened to me, what happened to you?’ – to maybe three times a week, then every day, to ‘Hey, here’s my phone number if you ever want to text.’ Next thing I know, I wake up and she’s all I care about, and I’m wondering if she feels the same about me.”

They got engaged in October 2020 and tied the knot in 2021 in an intimate ceremony at Blake’s Oklahoma home, where he had built a chapel for his bride.

Blake Lively & Ryan Reynolds

The superhero film Green Lantern brought actors Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds together in 2010 when Ryan was married to his ex-wife Scarlett Johansson. Their romantic relationship didn’t begin immediately, with the Deadpool star telling Entertainment Weekly: “We were buddies for a long time, which I think is the best way to have a relationship.”

He explained they organised a double date with different people a year later, but it was very “awkward” for the other two people since they realised their connection with one another. “We were both single [and] we went on a double date – she was on a date with another guy and I was on a date with another girl. We were just like fireworks coming across,” he said.

The couple – who share four children – bought a $5 million home in Pound Ridge, New York together after six months of dating, and went on to tie the knot at the Boone Hall Plantation in South Carolina in September 2012.

Mila Kunis & Ashton Kutcher

Mila Kunis’ love story with Ashton Kutcher also began through work. The couple became friends after meeting on the set of That 70’s Show aged 14 and 18, but they dated different people for several years – Mila was in a long-term relationship with Macaulay Culkin from 2002 until 2011, while Ashton was married to Demi Moore from 2005 until 2013.

They reconnected at the Golden Globes in 2012 and began a casual relationship before Mila admitted she caught feelings. Speaking of their Golden Globes run-in, she told Marc Maron on his WTF podcast: “I was looking around, and there was a really beautiful man from the back. I was literally like, ‘Oh, he’s kinda hot.’… And then he turned around, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God, it’s Kutch.’ I thought it was the weirdest thing that I was checking this guy out, and it was someone that I had known forever.”

They went public with their relationship in April of that year before getting engaged in February 2014 and married in July 2015. Mila and Ashton are now parents to two children.

Jennifer Lopez & Ben Affleck

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck have a love story for the ages! They started a friendship after working on Gigli together in 2002 when JLo was married to Cris Judd.

After the actress filed for divorce in July, they began dating and announced their engagement four months later. “I think what happened is, as we worked together, we became such good friends. We realised that we were crazy about each other. I found myself kind of thinking about him after the movie was over,” she told Zane Lowe for Apple Music, adding: “It wasn’t an instant thing because we weren’t allowed to do that. Yeah, it kind of grew over time.”

However, they never walked down the aisle, splitting in 2004 due to the media frenzy around their romance. JLo went on to marry Marc Anthony and get engaged to Alex Rodriguez, while Ben wed Jennifer Garner. However, after splitting from their partners, they rekindled their relationship in 2021 and tied the knot in 2022.

Kourtney Kardashian & Travis Barker

Travis Barker insisted he was “just friends” with Kourtney Kardashian in 2019, two years before they went public with their relationship in 2021. The Kardashians star and the Blink-182 drummer became close while they lived in neighboring homes in Hidden Hills, California. “Kourtney’s like a dear friend. That’s it. I mean, I love her to death. I love her family to death. But yeah, just friends,” he said to People at the 2019 iHeartRadio Music Awards.

Travis proposed to Kourtney on a beach in Montecito in October 2021, and they had an impressive three weddings in 2022 – one non-legal ceremony in Las Vegas followed by a courthouse wedding in Santa Barbara and a big celebration in Italy. They have a blended family including Kourtney’s three kids with Scott Disick: Mason, Penelope and Reign, as well as Travis’ stepdaughter Atiana, daughter Alabama, and son Landon with his ex-wife Shanna Moakler.

Prince William & Princess Kate

The Prince and Princess of Wales became part of the same friendship group at St Andrews University in 2001, but it wasn’t until a year later that their relationship blossomed while living in a shared house together off-campus.

During their engagement interview in 2010, William revealed: “When I first met Kate, I knew there was something very special about her. I knew there was possibly something that I wanted to explore there. We ended up being friends for a while and that just sort of was a good foundation. Because I do generally believe now that being friends with one another is a massive advantage. And it just went from there.” Kate added: “I actually think I went bright red when I met you and sort of scuttled off, feeling very shy. But we did become very close friends from quite early.”

The royals dated for eight years – including a brief split in 2007 – before getting engaged in 2010 and married in April 2011.

Margot Robbie & Tom Ackerly

Another workplace acquaintance marked the start of Margot Robbie and Tom Ackerley’s love story. The actress and the assistant director were working on Suite Francaise together in 2013 when they moved in with a group of friends.

The Barbie star, who described herself as the “ultimate single gal”, soon saw each other in a different light but wanted to keep it a secret from their fellow roommates. “We were friends for so long. I was always in love with him, but I thought, ‘Oh, he would never love me back. Don’t make it weird, Margot. Don’t be stupid and tell him that you like him,” she said in an interview with Vogue.

“And then it happened, and I was like, ‘Of course, we’re together. This makes so much sense, the way nothing has ever made sense before.'” The couple got married in 2016 in Australia.