Celebrity couples that started out as friends
Friendships can sometimes take a romantic turn — and such is the case with some iconic celebrity pairs.
Here are famous couples that started out as friends long before they were partners.
Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello were friends for a long time before coupling up.
Musicians Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello first met in 2014 and over the years they became close friends and collaborated on two hit songs, "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and "Senorita."
But the pair didn't officially become a couple until 2019.
"During 'I Know What You Did Last Summer,' I really bonded with him as more than a friend," Cabello told Rolling Stone, recalling her 2015 collaboration with Mendes. "I think he did too, but we were both really young, and he was experiencing the pressures of his career."
She said they didn't know "what to do with those feelings" and spent a while liking each other but not being together. But Cabello said as they began spending more time with one another, the two just connected and realized they wanted to be more than friends.
Courtney B. Vance and Angela Bassett were drama school classmates who fell in love.
Award-winning actors Courtney B. Vance and Angela Bassett have been married for over 20 years.
But before they embarked on their love story, Vance and Bassett spent years as friends.
The actors met when the two were students at Yale Drama School in the 1980s. Things never got romantic at the time because Vance had a girlfriend who Bassett described as "beautiful" in an interview with People magazine in 2018.
The couple reconnected years later in Hollywood, eventually married in 1997, and had children. In 2007, Vance and Bassett co-wrote the book, "Friends: A Love Story," which follows their relationship through the years.
Former Disney kids Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake found romance in the spotlight.
Before they became a pop music power couple, Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake worked together on "The Mickey Mouse Club" from 1993 to 1995.
The two developed a friendship as they grew up on screen in front of their fans.
After the show ended, the friendship developed into a romance and the pair started dating in 1999 before splitting in 2002.
Marcus Mumford and Carey Mulligan started as pen-pals.
Marcus Mumford and Carey Mulligan are now married, but the two have known each other for over a decade.
The Mumford and Sons front-man and "The Great Gatsby" actress' friendship began after the two attended the same Christian summer camp and kept in touch by writing letters.
They lost touch after a while but reconnected as adults at a party in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2011. At that point, it didn't take long before their friendship turned into a romance.
Mumford and Mulligan tied the knot in 2012 and have kids together.
Prince William and Kate Middleton were friends in college before they dated.
Prince William and Kate Middleton were friends for over a year before they became a couple.
They met when they were attending college together at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. The pair dated for years before and briefly broke up in the spring of 2007 before getting engaged in 2010.
Middleton and Prince William married in April of 2011 and now have three children.
Hailey Baldwin can thank her dad for introducing her to Justin Bieber.
Justin Bieber and Hailey Baldwin first met in 2009, when Hailey's father, actor Stephen Baldwin, introduced them backstage at "The Today Show."
After becoming friends, the two denied relationship reports over the years until they were spotted hanging out together in February of 2015.
In 2016, Bieber and Baldwin were spotted vacationing together, but things didn't last long, and the two split up later that year. Bieber and Baldwin were spotted back together in May 2018, when the paparazzi caught the pair getting close on the streets in New York City.
Eventually, the two got married in 2019 and Baldwin changed her last name to Bieber.
David Burtka and Neil Patrick Harris hung out for a bit as friends before going on their first date.
When the two actors first met in New York City, Patrick Harris was in his mid-20s and said he thought he'd be single forever, according to a joint interview the couple gave Out magazine in 2012.
At the time, Burtka was in a long-distance relationship with someone in Los Angeles, California.
At first, the pair hung out platonically with other friends in the city. "We had a lunch or so, but nothing romantic," Burtka told Out.
But Burtka ended up breaking up with his boyfriend, and a week later, he and Patrick Harris went on their first date together. "We started hanging out every single night, and after three months, it was just nonstop," he said.
The couple, who married in September 2014, are now fathers to a pair of fraternal twins, who they had via a surrogate in 2010.
Tom Ackerley and Margot Robbie were roommates before they were married.
Tom Ackerley met actress Margot Robbie in 2013 when the two worked together on the film, "Suite Francaise," for which Ackerley was the assistant director. The two formed a friendship when they lived together with a group of friends in a London house.
After a year as roommates, Robbie began a romance with Ackerley, who was working as assistant director on a "Mission Impossible" sequel at the time.
The pair began to date but kept their relationship a secret from the rest of their roommates. The couple got married in 2016 in Australia.
Al Roker and Deborah Roberts developed a platonic friendship first.
Al Roker and Deborah Roberts met in 1990 when Roberts started working at NBC as a reporter. When she arrived, the veteran weatherman took Roberts to lunch to welcome her to the network.
Back then, Roberts didn't have any romantic feelings about Roker, who was married at the time. "I just thought he was a nice guy, and that was that," Roberts told People in 1999.
Roker and Roberts maintained their friendship and kept in touch via email after Roberts left NBC. But when Roberts came back to New York in 1992 to work on "Dateline," their relationship changed.
Now divorced, Roker began to show Roberts his romantic side with a series of gestures including leaving food and flowers at her apartment while she was away covering the Olympics in Barcelona.
Roker proposed to Roberts on New Year's Day in 1994, and the couple married one year later in September.
Kanye West initially declared his love for Kim Kardashian on a song.
The reality TV star first met the rapper in October 2010 while filming "Keeping Up With the Kardashians." At the time, Kanye West had recently ended his relationship with Amber Rose, but Kim Kardashian was dating model Gabriel Aubry.
The couple now known as "Kimye" maintained a friendship until things took a romantic turn in 2012.
While Kardashian was married to NBA player, Kris Humphries, West released a track called "Theraflu," on which he admitted that his feelings for Kim were a little more than friendly.
In July 2012, the KKW Beauty founder was spotted on vacation with West. In December of that year, she announced that she and the rapper were expecting their first child.
Kardashian finalized her divorce from Humphries in 2013 and married West in France in May 2014. The pair now has multiple children together.
Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively found love on a double date — with other people.
"Green Lantern" costars Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively met in 2010 while filming the superhero flick. At the time, Reynolds was married to Scarlett Johansson and Lively was dating her "Gossip Girl" co-star, Penn Badgley.
In late 2010, both Reynolds and Lively found themselves single and maintained their friendship as they promoted the release of "Green Lantern" in the summer of 2011.
But about a year after the film's release, things went from platonic to romantic. Reynolds and Lively were on a double date with other people when they realized that they had more of a connection with each other than their dates at the time.
The two tied the knot in 2012 and now have children together.
Mila Kunis married her first on-screen kiss, Ashton Kutcher.
When Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis played a couple in the hit sitcom "That '70s Show," the pair had no idea that they would end up together in real life.
The series premiered in 1998 when Kunis was 14 and Kutcher was 19. And although Kunis shared her first kiss with her costar, there were no signs of a romance back then.
When the show ended in 2006, the two kept in touch though they were involved in other relationships.
Kunis dated Macaulay Culkin from 2002 to 2011, whereas Kutcher was married to Demi Moore from 2005 to 2013.
Things changed for the couple when Kunis spotted a "really beautiful man" — as the actress put it on an episode of Marc Maron's "WTF" podcast — backstage at an awards show. To her surprise, Kunis said, she was checking out was her former costar and friend, Kutcher.
The two reconnected, married in 2015, and have children together.
