Top 10 Times Celeb Couples' Age Gaps Caused Backlash
The blacklash was wider than the age gap of these couples. Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the famous and infamous relationships that caused a stir and drew negative media attention.
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00:00 You didn't fall in love then.
00:02 Don't start a story, they're gonna write that.
00:04 Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the famous and infamous relationships that caused a stir and drew negative media attention.
00:14 We'll be including couples who are no longer together.
00:17 People talk about age, but age is just, it's a meaningless number. It's like height or shoe size.
00:23 Number 10. Billie Eilish and Jessie Rutherford.
00:27 Grammy winner Billie Eilish took the music industry by storm at a young age.
00:31 Many of her most diehard fans have followed the songstress since the beginning of her career, so it's hard for some to accept that she's now an adult.
00:39 I'm the bad guy. Duh.
00:43 People quickly criticized her more feminine fashion choices, but nothing has been more controversial than her relationship with the neighborhood frontman, Jessie Rutherford, 11 years her senior.
00:56 I pulled his ass. All me. I did that s***.
01:01 While the two were spotted together in early October 2022, it wasn't until November that the relationship was confirmed by Eilish herself, when she shared a pic via Instagram.
01:11 Their couple's Halloween costume as an old man and a baby was controversial on its own.
01:16 After less than a year, the musicians split in May 2023.
01:20 I don't relate to you. I don't relate to you, no.
01:28 Number 9. Olivia Wilde and Harry Styles.
01:31 Now, I was chatting to Niall the other day. You and Niall are still single.
01:34 What are you looking for in your perfect lady, Harry? That's what we want to know.
01:37 Since his days with One Direction, Harry Styles has dealt with a massive amount of media attention with everyone all up in his business, particularly his dating life.
01:47 During the filming of Don't Worry Darling in fall 2020, the then 28-year-old leading man, Styles, sparked a romance with 38-year-old actor-director Olivia Wilde.
01:58 So that kind of openness and playfulness and fearlessness is so wonderful on a set.
02:04 We needed whoever was going to play Jack to be instantly lovable and someone who was deeply charming.
02:12 While anyone he's ever cozied up with has experienced online hate, this specific coupling received instant backlash, largely due to the decade between them.
02:22 All kinds of drama surrounded the film, but Styles and Wilde's relationship was at the center of it all.
02:28 Who can forget the awkward tension at the Venice Film Festival in September 2022, just months after the premiere?
02:35 The two reportedly decided to take a break.
02:38 [Music]
02:45 Number 8. Florence Pugh and Zach Braff
02:48 [Music]
02:57 English actress Florence Pugh skyrocketed to a Hollywood A-lister in 2019.
03:03 With fame and fans come people who feel compelled to hate on a celeb's success and, well, everything else.
03:10 Speculation about Pugh's possible relationship with Scrubs star and filmmaker Zach Braff began in January 2019, and by April, they were seen holding hands in NYC.
03:21 In December, Pugh confirmed their couple status via Instagram when she responded to someone's unwarranted comment about their 21-year age difference.
03:29 She had to clap back again in April 2020, after a slew of commenters shared the same criticism.
03:36 "I do not need you to tell me who I should and should not love, and I would never in my life ever, ever tell anyone who they can and cannot love.
03:46 It is not your place, and really it has nothing to do with you."
03:52 Although Pugh and Braff broke up in August 2022, they've both expressed interest in working together again, like Braff's 2023 drama A Good Person.
04:01 "There's so much ease with reading a script when someone knows how you talk and how far they can push you and what you're capable of doing.
04:09 So it was just a joy. It was so much fun."
04:11 Number 7. Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise
04:14 "I've been in the dream-making business this year. Are you in the dream-making business?"
04:18 "I don't want to disappoint her."
04:23 In a 2004 interview, Dawson's Creek actress Katie Holmes admitted that Tom Cruise was her celeb crush when she was young.
04:31 Little did she know, or maybe she did, that she'd begin a very public romance with the actor daredevil in April 2005.
04:39 In May, Cruise made a more than memorable appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
04:43 You know, the one where he bizarrely jumped on her couch because he was so overwhelmed with love for the woman 16 years his junior.
04:51 "Have you ever felt this way before?"
05:05 Their relationship quickly progressed that year, with the couple getting engaged in June and announcing their pregnancy in October.
05:12 Their unsurprising divorce in July 2012 was just as rushed.
05:16 The gap in age was just one of the many unsettling things about TomCat.
05:20 "If you look at it from the outside, it suggests that she was doing it in secret for reasons that remain to be seen.
05:25 She didn't want Tom to know she was doing this. And again, to your point, an issue of control and secrecy here is really high."
05:31 Number 6. Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher
05:34 Another unexpected and rather controversial relationship in the early aughts was between actress Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher.
05:41 Though the two met in 2003, they didn't tie the knot until 2005, when they were 42 and 27 years old respectively.
05:50 "You know, people talk about age, but age is just, it's a meaningless number. It's like height or shoe size."
05:56 "Or IQ."
05:57 "Yeah."
05:58 "Wait, what?"
06:03 Kutcher became the stepdad to Moore's three daughters with ex Bruce Willis, Rumor, Scout and Tallulah.
06:10 Sadly, the newlyweds suffered a miscarriage a year later, which Moore would detail in her 2019 memoir, Inside Out,
06:17 along with her husband's infidelity that led to their separation in November 2011.
06:22 "He admitted it right away, and I think my response was, 'Are you f***ing kidding me?' That was it."
06:36 Kutcher rekindled his romance with former That '70s Show co-star Mila Kunis in 2012, a year before he was officially divorced from Moore.
06:46 These days, all three are on good terms.
06:48 "I had no idea that we went to the same high school. We have a lot in common."
06:52 "Please get off my stage."
06:53 "Okay."
06:54 "Okay."
06:55 Like many artists, Quebec native Celine Dion started out when she was young.
07:02 Her career really took off in the 1980s after producer René Angelele was so impressed with her vocal chops that he became her manager.
07:10 "I went to his office and I sang in front of him, and I was 12 years old, and we've been working together since that time."
07:19 Cut to 1993, when 25-year-old Dion and 51-year-old Angelele went public with their engagement.
07:26 Both have said that the relationship hadn't begun until three years prior.
07:30 "I always kissed on the cheek, and that night I made like a little stop right here, and she stopped."
07:38 "A little stop?"
07:39 "And everything changed."
07:40 "Had you fallen in love by then?"
07:42 "I was in love a long time before that."
07:45 But as one would expect, her mother didn't approve of Dion being with a divorcee 26 years older than her.
07:51 However, the two married on December 17, 1994, and went on to have three children.
07:57 While many found it problematic, over the course of their 21-year marriage, others saw it as true love.
08:03 Angelele passed away in 2016 after a years-long battle with throat cancer.
08:09 "You're never ready for something like this to happen. Even though you expect it, when it hits you, you're not prepared. It's hard."
08:23 4. Aaron and Sam Taylor-Johnson
08:27 "You're usually on the couch, you know, watching this sort of thing, so it's nice to be out here."
08:31 Aaron Johnson met his future wife Sam Taylor-Wood in 2008 on the set of her feature directorial debut Nowhere Boy,
08:39 in which he starred as a young John Lennon.
08:41 After exactly one year of dating, the couple got engaged in 2009,
08:46 then had their first daughter together in July 2010, and their second in January 2012.
08:52 The Taylor-Johns officially tied the knot in a June wedding when Aaron was 22 and Sam was 45.
08:59 "Oh, yeah, I wanna hear what that's about. That moment of silence."
09:04 Aaron, who also became a stepdad to Sam's two daughters from her previous marriage,
09:08 would later say that he always knew that he would be a young father.
09:12 This comment and everything else about the relationship sparked backlash online,
09:17 with people viewing it as an example of grooming and power imbalances.
09:21 "There's a lot of trust."
09:23 "The director is the boss, though. Is she not?"
09:26 "Yeah."
09:27 Number 3. Elvis and Priscilla Presley
09:30 Over the decades, the story of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, née Beaulieu,
09:34 has been well-documented from page to screen.
09:37 The pair met in 1959 while stationed in Germany,
09:40 Priscilla's stepfather with the Air Force and Elvis with the U.S. Army.
09:44 "I guess you'd wonder, what would a 24-year-old guy have in common with a 14-year-old girl?"
09:49 "Now knowing Elvis, it all kind of fits in place, you know,
09:53 and why I was a girl who spoke English, we had a lot in common."
09:57 After the singer returned to the States,
09:59 they had a sporadic, long-distance relationship until 1963,
10:03 when she left Germany for Memphis.
10:05 The Beaulieus weren't exactly thrilled seeing their young daughter with an older man.
10:10 But on May 1, 1967, Elvis, 32, and Priscilla, 21, tied the knot in a Las Vegas ceremony.
10:17 "I wasn't making all their arrangements, thank goodness, you know,
10:20 it all had to be properly planned because it was, you know, a huge, you know, secret,
10:26 and we didn't want this out because we didn't want this to turn out to be a, you know, circus."
10:30 Most fans have chosen to accept, celebrate, or ignore the problematic relationship.
10:35 But after seeing recent biopics of the Presleys,
10:38 today's moviegoers called out the uncomfortable age gap and his allegedly controlling behavior.
10:43 "I mean, you lived his life. You honestly didn't have your own life.
10:47 You lived his life. You saw the movies he wanted to see.
10:51 You listened to the music he listened to. You go to places that he would go.
10:55 So you, you really kind of lost yourself."
10:59 Number 2. Doug Hutchison and Courtney Stodden
11:02 As we look back at the cruel media treatment of years past with a modern lens,
11:06 one person who deserves a massive apology is Courtney Stodden.
11:10 "I felt like a prisoner in my house. I felt like a prisoner in my body.
11:15 I felt like a prisoner in everybody else's minds of who they thought I was.
11:20 And I just accepted it."
11:23 In May 2011, the then-aspiring actress-singer-model was thrust into the spotlight
11:29 when they married the Green Mile actor Doug Hutchison.
11:32 What made the Vegas marriage so newsworthy was that it required parental consent
11:37 from Stodden's mother, Krista Keller.
11:39 "Doug actually asked me out first. And I was married and I said no.
11:43 And then he started corresponding with her.
11:47 Who allows their 16-year-old daughter to do all this stuff?"
11:51 The then-50-year-old Hutchison was rightfully scrutinized due to the outrageous 35-year age gap,
11:57 and Keller was condemned for allowing the relationship to happen.
12:01 But young Stodden also endured public criticism and humiliation.
12:05 After the marriage ended in 2020, they opened up about the trauma of being
12:10 groomed by Hutchison as well as their struggle with mental health and body image.
12:15 "I'm in therapy to try to make sense of a lot of the things I went through."
12:22 Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
12:26 Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton
12:29 The 20-plus year gap was just one troubling aspect of this PDA-heavy Hollywood pairing.
12:34 "My favorite one in a car was today, just before we got here.
12:38 What is this, MTV?"
12:41 Kate Beckinsale and Pete Davidson
12:43 The 20-year age difference made this another headline-making relationship for the comedian.
12:48 "Apparently people have a crazy fascination with our age difference.
12:52 But it doesn't really bother us. But then again, I'm new to this."
12:55 Lisa Bonet and Jason Momoa
12:57 The Aquaman star fulfilled his childhood dream, dating the Cosby Show actress 12 years his senior.
13:03 "Was there something special that you guys watched, one of the shows or any of the films that really stood out to you?"
13:09 "My love."
13:11 Leonardo DiCaprio and every girl he dates
13:15 His reputation for exclusively dating models and actresses in their 20s is a punchline.
13:20 "Once upon a time in Hollywood, nearly three hours long, Leonardo DiCaprio attended the premiere,
13:25 and by the end, his date was too old for him."
13:31 Scott Disick and Sofia Richie
13:33 Well, Penelope said it best, and we agree.
13:37 "What qualities should we look for in a girl?"
13:42 "Older."
13:43 "Yeah, older than what he's used to."
13:45 "Yeah."
13:46 "Okay."
13:47 "He was saying late 20s, but I said young 30s is fine."
13:49 "No, 20s?"
13:50 "Exactly."
13:51 "You're 40."
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14:08 Number 1. Woody Allen and Soonyi Previn
14:13 In 1980, twice-divorced filmmaker Woody Allen began dating actress and frequent star in his films, Mia Farrow.
14:21 At the time, she had multiple adopted children, including daughter Soonyi Previn.
14:26 "Was he the ideal father? You know, probably no, because he worked so much and all of that, but he was their father figure.
14:33 He took the little ones shopping and bought them, as I said, bought them airplanes and magic tricks and started bringing all of them to basketball games."
14:43 Though the couple never lived together, they adopted a daughter, Dylan, in 1985, and had a biological son, Satchel Ronan, two years later.
14:51 In 1992, the relationship ended and Farrow alleged Allen abused Dylan.
14:56 Only months later, Allen and Previn went public with their relationship that, according to them, began a year prior when she was 21 and he was 56.
15:06 "Did you have any reservations about it?"
15:08 "Reservations about what?"
15:09 "About getting involved with Soonyi."
15:12 "Did I have reser... I didn't have reservations because I had... it was a totally separate thing."
15:18 Despite the massive controversy, they got married on December 23, 1997, in Venice, Italy.
15:24 Previn maintains that Allen wasn't fatherly.
15:27 However, in a 2015 interview, he referred to himself as paternal.
15:32 "Ha ha, that's a polite word for what you are."
15:35 What age gap couple shocked you the most? Let us know in the comments below.
15:39 "I love you."
15:41 "I love you too, Nana. I mean, honey. I'm sorry, honey, I love you."
15:47 Do you agree with our picks? Check out this other recent clip from MsMojo.
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15:55 [Music]