It's well known that in the lives of the rich and famous, no publicity is bad publicity. It doesn't matter if a celeb's name is in the news due to their remarkable achievements or because they broke the law: at least people are talking about them! Famous faces have managers and agents who make sure that the right stories about their clients reach the press at the right time. A staggering amount of public appearances are staged or orchestrated to benefit the celeb in question as much as possible - especially if they've got a new work project that's about to drop.
But what about celebrity relationships? Just how much are they controlled by the PR machine? Well, a lot, apparently! While many celebs use their real relationships to gain a little bit of extra publicity, others stage romances entirely in order to attract attention. These so-called 'PRomances' can be pretty convincing - you'd never know a lot of these "love" affairs were fake! However, with hindsight, it often becomes remarkably clear that these celebs were actually never together at all. On the flip side, some celebrity relationships are dogged by rumors of fakery even though they're actually genuine! Here are just a few examples of some celebrity couples who were in 'PRelationships', and others who definitely weren't - despite what the press claimed!
20 Kaley Cuoco and Henry Cavill's 'PRomance' Lasted A Matter Of Days
To be honest, we won't be shocked if you don't remember Kaley Cuoco and Henry Cavill's blink-and-you'll-miss-it romance. It lasted for a mere ten days back in 2013, and most people think it was just a PR act. Cuoco and Cavill were spotted out together a few times in June and July of that year, holding hands and getting groceries together. Coincidentally, Cavill's huge movie Man of Steel came out in June 2013. It's almost like he needed some extra press attention to really sell the movie... And that's where Kaley came in. The two are represented by the same PR company, so it's not a stretch that Cuoco could have been asked to 'date' Cavill for a little while. She clearly benefitted from the move too: she later admitted in interviews that dating Cavill was what really put her in the media spotlight, not her work on The Big Bang Theory. This just has "PRomance" written all over it!
19 Katie Holmes Reportedly Had To Audition To Be Tom Cruise's Wife
From the moment Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes got together back in 2005, rumors started to fly that their "relationship" wasn't all that it seemed. Some particularly sensational stories claimed that Holmes had been 'interviewed' for the position of Cruise's future spouse by the actor and his Church of Scientology elders. After Cruise's failed marriage to Nicole Kidman, the church reportedly made efforts to secure him a more "suitable" bride. They allegedly approached a number of Hollywood actresses, offering them a five-year "marriage contract" with Cruise that would assign them various benefits in return. While Sofia Vergara and Scarlett Johansson reportedly rejected this offer, Holmes decided to snap it up. Cruise and Holmes always strenuously denied these outlandish claims, stating that they married for love and love alone. However, the rumors cropped up once again when the pair split in 2012 after 5-and-a-bit years of marriage. Will we ever know the truth? Probably not.
18 Kim K's 72-Day Marriage To Kris Humphries Clearly Didn't Happen For Love
As observers of the Kardashian-Jenners know all too well, pretty much everything the family does is a clever shot at attracting yet more publicity. Momager Kris Jenner is an expert in positioning her daughters in the right situations at the right times. The question is, would Kim Kardashian go so far as to marry someone she didn't love just as a PR stunt? A lot of people think so! Before Kim K was in an adorably happy relationship with rapper Kanye West, she was briefly involved with professional basketball player Kris Humphries. The pair's short-lived relationship moved pretty quickly: they started dating in October 2010, got engaged in May 2011, and married three months later.
However, the real media circus came when the wedding was shown in an early October 2011 episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians. The amount of publicity fanfare that the Kardashian-Jenners kicked up about the wedding made people start to question whether this fledgling marriage was truly based on love. Sure enough, on October 31st, 2011, Kim filed for divorce from Humphries. Their PR union may have only lasted for 72 days, but it certainly did its job. Who's ever going to forget this incident? Not us!
17 Jennifer Aniston's Fauxmance With Vince Vaughn Started Just As Brangelina Went Public
The romantic exploits of Friends' actress, Jennifer Aniston were a frequent topic of conversation back in the early 2000’s. After her split from Brad Pitt and the resulting "Brangelina" pairing, the media had a tendency to pity Jen. She was the poor scorned wife who'd been replaced by Angelina Jolie! Whether it was the truth or not didn't matter: Aniston was quickly made into the victim. However, shortly after Brangelina became a thing, Jen surprised us all by going public with a 'romance' of her own. She was linked to fellow movie star Vince Vaughn, with whom she'd starred in the ironically named comedy The Break-Up. While some people were quick to congratulate Jen on finding love once again, others took a more cynical view. It was whispered that the whole Vince Vaughn affair was a PR stunt designed to promote The Break-Up and rehabilitate Jen's image following her divorce. Aniston and Vaughn ultimately 'broke up' a year after first being spotted together. Whether they were actually even together is still up for debate.
16 Taylor Swift Claimed Her Romance With Tom Hiddleston Was Real, But We're Not Convinced
While there are many theories surrounding Taylor Swift's whirlwind romance with Tom Hiddleston, none of them suggest that their "love" was actually real. At the time, many people openly suggested that it was nothing more than a PR stunt to get Tom's name in the headlines. Apparently, the actor was very keen on being cast as the next James Bond and decided to make himself more well-known in a failsafe way: by dating Taylor Swift. On the singer's part, some people have suggested that she dated Tom to distract people from the Kim Kardashian / Kanye West drama that was threatening to damage her reputation. Speaking of "reputation", on Taylor's latest album the song "Getaway Car" implies that she dated Hiddleston as an excuse to get out of her relationship with Calvin Harris. Whether it was done for PR or to help Swift leave her ex, it looks like the Hiddleswift romance was nothing more than a sham.
15 Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart May Have Only Dated To Sell The Twilight Movies
Following the breakup of Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens in 2010, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart took their crown as the most popular teen movie couple out there. As well as starring as lovebirds Bella Swan and Edward Cullen in The Twilight Saga, this supposed "power couple" allegedly dated off-screen for three years. Twilight fans were heavily invested in their relationship and were devastated when Stewart apparently cheated on Pattinson in 2012. However, some more jaded observers wryly pointed out that R-Patz and K-Stew split up just as The Twilight Saga was leaving our screens for good. It's almost like they stayed together to promote the movies, then ended things as soon as they no longer needed to boost publicity. Was their entire relationship a PR-motivated sham? It's not outside the realms of possibility.
14 Julianne Hough Has Practically Admitted Her Engagement To Ryan Seacrest Was A Sham
When one of the parties involved admits that there was something shady about their past relationship, you know you're probably onto a former PRomance. There were whispers about Julianne Hough and Ryan Seacrest's "love" from the moment they made it public. Was Hough just a "beard" set up to dispell the rumors that Ryan is gay? Did she need more publicity for her burgeoning TV career and date Seacrest to get it? We'll never know. However, Hough did admit in 2014 that there was "nothing right" with her and Seacrest's relationship. Was it 'wrong' due to it being a total fakery? If so, the pair were dedicated to the ruse. They 'dated' for three years before Hough reportedly ended things because she wanted a real relationship. We can't say we blame her!
13 Did Selena Gomez and Zedd Only Date To Promote Their Music?
While Selena Gomez's most infamous relationship has to be her constantly on-and-off romance with Justin Bieber, her brief stint dating music producer Zedd also raised some eyebrows. The musicians were first rumored to be together just as their song together - Zedd's "I Want You To Know" - was scheduled for release. It was all a bit too conveniently timed to be a coincidence. Add to this the fact that Selena and Zedd's "relationship" only lasted as long as the song was in the charts and you have your textbook case of a successful PRomance. These two were seen out together enough to fuel rumors and generate publicity but didn't go fully public with their "relationship" until it was over. In fact, Zedd has stated that only when he dated Selena did he realize just how much attention 'famous' people got. Well, if publicity was the aim, these two definitely succeeded.
12 Zac Efron's Summer Romance With Michelle Rodriguez Was PR Gold
Hollywood hunk Zac Efron seems to be something of an expert when it comes to PR-fuelled relationships. Firstly, there was his relationship with his High School Musical co-star Vanessa Hudgens. A lot of people thought that their "love" was faked to generate publicity for the Disney Channel movies, although we're more inclined to think it was real. Then you have his public flirtation with his The Greatest Showman co-star Rebecca Ferguson. Efron couldn't stop gushing about Ferguson's virtues just before their movie together was due to be released. Interesting...
Finally, and most convincingly, there's Zac's 2014 fling with actress Michelle Rodriguez. Rodriguez was already in the news that summer due to her split from model Cara Delevingne. What better way for Zac to get publicity for his latest movie Neighbors than to hook up with someone who's already attracting serious media attention? Efron and Rodriguez dated for two PDA-filled months before going their separate ways. Their brief time together generated plenty of headlines.
11 J-Lo and Drake Only 'Dated' Because They Were Working Together... And 'Split' When Their Song Was Scrapped
The brief 'fling' between J-Lo and Drake has to be the most obvious case of a PRomance out there. Rumors that the pair were dating first sprung up in late 2016, just as they started to record a song together. Interesting timing there... Despite being spotted together numerous times, neither J-Lo nor Drake would confirm or deny whether they were actually an item. Of course, this only made the press pay them even MORE attention - what's more absorbing than trying to work out if two people are actually together? This uncertainty dragged on for months, but in March 2017, we finally got some closure. J-Lo confirmed on The Daily Show that she was not dating Drake. Coincidentally, news broke that her song with him had been scrapped a couple of weeks later! When they no longer had music to promote together, J-Lo and Drake stopped even pretending that they were romantically linked. It was clearly just a publicity stunt all along.
10 If Blac Chyna and Rob Kardashian's Relationship Was Designed To Attract Publicity, It Did Its Job
Throughout their tumultuous 18-month-long relationship, Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna never seemed to be out of the headlines. Their hasty engagement, the birth of their daughter Dream, and their very public fights meant that they attracted a fair bit of press attention throughout 2016 and 2017. But what if that was the point all along? What if the relationship was a ruse to get the black sheep of the Kardashian family a bit more publicity? When the pair first started dating, rumors started to brew that suggested they were only doing so to get their own reality show. The pregnancy, the arguments - they were all engineered to make sure the world was talking about Rob and Chyna. If this was the plan, it certainly worked: the world followed their doomed 'relationship' with bated breath. However, one incredibly messy 'breakup' later, we doubt these two will be getting a reality show anytime soon.
9 Theo James and Shailene Woodley Never 'Confirmed' Their Showmance, But They Certainly Added Fuel To The Fire
The Divergent movie series was billed as the next Hunger Games when it first hit our screens in 2014. It had a dystopian setting, a strong female lead - and a passionate romance interweaved into the story. Shailene Woodley and Theo James portrayed star-crossed lovers Tris and Four, bringing sizzling chemistry to the role. However, sparks seemed to fly between the pair off-screen too. During the press tour for Divergent, they flirted like crazy! The inevitable dating rumors started to appear, and neither James nor Woodley denied or confirmed them. Despite James apparently having a long-time on-off girlfriend, Ruth Kearney, he was happy to let the press speculate about his relationship with Woodley. That sounds very much like PR fodder to us! What better way to promote a movie than to have its stars enter into a fauxmance? In fact, there are still whispers to this day about Woodley and James' status. Are they friends? Are they more? Will the final Divergent movie ever actually happen? So many questions.
8 Katy Perry and Riff Raff's Brief PR Relationship Confused Us All, To Say The Least
Katy Perry has had a pretty interesting dating life over the years. From her failed marriage to Russell Brand to her constantly on-and-off flings with John Mayer and Orlando Bloom, she certainly knows how to thrust her love life into the limelight. However, perhaps the most bizarre Perry romance of all was her brief "fling" with rapper Riff Raff. The two collaborated on the remix of Perry's 2014 tune "This Is How We Do", and - surprise surprise - this is exactly when the dating rumors began. The two turned up to the VMAs together in denim outfits reminiscent of Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears' iconic 2001 look. They didn't deny that they were a couple, but Raff was the only one who tried to confirm it. Was he just dating Perry for the fame? Was the whole thing just a showmance to promote their song? It certainly makes more sense than them actually being together...
7 Kendall Jenner Started Dating Megastar Harry Styles Just As She Began Her Fashion Career...
Here we have another classic example of a celebrity dating someone much more famous than them just as they want to make a big career move. Under those circumstances, it's unsurprising that people whispered about Kendall Jenner's "fling" with One Direction star Harry Styles! The prevailing view at the time was that Jenner was only using Styles to get publicity for her fledgling fashion career. At the time, Kendall was probably the least known Kardashian-Jenner sister: she may have wanted to get a PR boost to rival the fame of her sisters. Jenner and Styles never even confirmed that they were dating, let alone publicly announced that they'd split. However, now that the crucial early days of Jenner's career are behind her, she's no longer spotted about the place with Styles. Suspicious? We think so.
6 Even Renee Zellweger and Bradley Cooper's Fake Relationship Couldn't Save The Movie They Filmed Together
Remember when Renee Zellweger and Bradley Cooper were Hollywood's freshest new couple back in 2009? Yeah - that happened! The two met on the set of their move Case 39 and mysteriously started dating just as the movie was released in the UK. If this was all a publicity stunt to promote the film, it turned out to be a pretty drawn-out one. Case 39's release in other territories ended up being delayed multiple times: it only dropped in the U.S. in October 2010, over a year after its UK premiere. Zellweger and Cooper remained "together" during their movie's extended promotional period, but didn't last very long after that. They quietly split in early 2011 after Case 39 had been confirmed as a total flop. Even their PRomance couldn't save it!
5 Taylor Swift and Harry Styles' Doomed Relationship Gave Us 1989
When music industry superstars Taylor Swift and Harry Styles briefly dated in the latter months of 2012, people were quick to dismiss their romance as a huge PR stunt. Swift's then-newest album Red dropped around a month before the Styles dating rumors first began - surely it couldn't just be a coincidence? Was the pair's brief relationship only designed to promote the record? We think not. While Swift's dalliance with Styles didn't last very long, it clearly had a profound effect on her. The majority of the songs on her next album, 1989, related to her feelings about the whole affair. Surely you wouldn't write dozens of songs about a romance that was actually fake? We don't think so, anyway. While this relationship was short and ultimately doomed, it seems to have been real while it lasted.
4 Zayn Malik and Gigi Hadid May Have Split Up Now, But Their Love Was Real
While former One Direction star Zayn Malik and model Gigi Hadid have split in recent weeks, we're still inclined to believe their relationship was more than just a PR stunt. When the pair first got together, a lot of people thought it was just a move to get Malik more publicity as he embarked on his solo music career. It didn't help that Hadid starred in the music video for his track "Pillowtalk" - was she really just there as a prop to boost his career endeavors? Well, not if you consider the rest of their time together. In their two years of dating, Malik and Hadid really did appear to be in love. They supported each other publically both personally and in terms of their career, but also didn't shove their romance in our faces too much. Sure, they posed for the odd publicity shot here and there, but what famous couple doesn't? We're just sad that they couldn't go the distance in the end - they made a pretty cute pair!
3 High School Musical Sweethearts Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens Were Really Together For A Long Time
Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens were the original teen movie couple. After portraying love interests Troy and Gabriella in the High School Musical series, they fell for each other off-screen and dated for no less than four years! However, a lot of people whispered that their romance was staged in order to promote the popular movie musicals. Thing is, that's a long time for two young people to date if it was all for show! It seems doubtful that Efron and Hudgens would waste their early twenties in a fake relationship. Plus, to this day both Vanessa and Zac are still remarkably candid about their time together. Vanessa even admitted that their breakup was mostly down to her own jealousy after Zac became a total heartthrob. The conclusion: while it may have looked staged to some, their romance was definitely real - and had a profound effect on both parties involved.
2 Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth's On-And-Off Romance Is More Than Just A PR Stunt
While some people initially branded Liam Hemsworth and Miley Cyrus' relationship a PR stunt, it's been too much of a rollercoaster ride since then to not be a real romance! Miley and Liam first got together back in 2009 after starring in the cute romantic drama movie The Last Song. They were both at pivotal points in their careers: Liam was trying to catch up to the fame of his older brother Chris, while the then-17-year-old Miley was trying to shed her "teen actress" image and break into mainstream acting. What better way to raise their profiles than to date each other, right? Well, even if their relationship started that way, it's definitely blossomed into real love. Despite taking a years-long break from 2013 to 2016, the pair is now back together and preparing to get married. Photos of them make it pretty clear that they're devoted to each other. They're relationship goals, and definitely not just in it for the PR. Miley's twerking gave her plenty of that, anyway!
1 Anyone Who Looks At Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton Can Tell They're Actually In Love
You'd think that anyone who took one look at Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton would know instantly that they're incredibly loved-up. They're so cute together! They clearly love and respect each other! However, some people out there can't quite see that. When these two got together after divorcing their respective spouses, Miranda Lambert and Gavin Rossdale, whispers quickly began that it was all a publicity stunt. Was it all an act to promote the latest season of The Voice, a show on which both Stefani and Shelton are coaches? Did the pair simply want to keep their names in the news after their divorce scandals died down? We don't think so. It's been two years now and Gwen and Blake are still going strong. Though they might be an unlikely couple - the country star and the ska princess - they're still undeniably adorable together.
