Couples… That Burst Apart

Love comes and goes, some more quickly than others. There have been countless lightning-fast romances among music and screen stars—and celebrities in general. Impulsive unions born of one wild night… fiery passions ruled by instinct that sooner or later spiraled out of control.

Fifty-five hours. That’s all it took to toast—and torpedo—the wedding of one of the most talked-about celebs ever. Maybe it was New Year’s Eve euphoria, perhaps a few too many drinks… In January 2004, Britney Spears married her hometown friend and fellow twenty-two-year-old Jason Alexander in Las Vegas. Insiders called it “a prank gone too far.” At 5 a.m. on Saturday they headed to the Little White Wedding Chapel to exchange vows. By Monday—after the weekend’s wild celebrations and the last of the champagne buzz—the annulment papers were already filed.

And what about Nicolas Cage? A fairy-tale wedding in Hawaii in April 2002, followed by a lightning-fast divorce that November. “Irreconcilable differences,” they said, both reaching the same conclusion in three months—though the final decree wasn’t issued until three years later. “A marriage doomed from the start,” admitted Elvis’s nephew. The son of comparative literature professor August Coppola—far less famous than his brother Francis Ford—proved his proud, rebellious streak again in March 2019 when he married Hollywood makeup artist Erika Koike. Four days later it was over; the divorce was finalized on May 31 of that year.

Just twenty-six days—those were the fleeting moments Axl Rose, frontman of Guns N’ Roses, and Erin Everly spent as husband and wife. “The dream you wish would never end turned into your worst nightmare,” Erin later wrote. They wed on April 28, 1990, after four years together, but the honeymoon was anything but smooth. Accusations of sexual misconduct and domestic violence cut short what on paper had looked like an unbreakable bond.

Drew Barrymore was only nineteen when she married producer Jeremy Thomas in 1994—thirty days later, she filed for divorce. Her second marriage, to comedian Tom Green in 2001, collapsed within months. And because bad luck seems to come in threes… four years after saying “I do” to art dealer Will Kopelman in 2012, Drew and Will separated—albeit amicably. “Sadly, our family is separating,” she said, “though we don’t plan to stop being a family because of this.”

Sixty days—just two months—was all it took for Baywatch’s Pamela Anderson and her “lucky” guy Rick Salomon to call it quits… or so it seemed. They married in Las Vegas in October 2007, mere months after Pamela’s split from Kid Rock. That July ceremony dissolved by November, much like her earlier marriage to Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee. Yet Pamela and Rick couldn’t resist a replay: in September 2013 they tied the knot again. Six months later came another split filing, then a change of heart…and in a whirlwind of breakups and makeups, one more separation petition followed.

The list goes on: Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth, Jennifer Lopez and Chris Judd, Shannen Doherty and Ashley Hamilton, Sophia Bush and Chad Michael Murray, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard… just to name a few. A curse on the most envied stars? Or perhaps a mirror reflecting a society that can’t withstand life’s stumbles. Four steps together, then off they go—because truly understanding one another is another matter entirely.

Also read: Bon Ton for Men