Fast Celebrity Engagements
There’s an old saying when it comes to meeting your future spouse: “When you know, you know” and some celebrities who had quick engagements certainly knew — or at least thought the did!
As much as it sounds like a movie plot, fast celebrity engagements happen IRL, too. Sometimes, just like the rest of us, stars fall head-over-heels in love and can’t imagine being without the other person — and rush straight into ring-shopping.
In recent years, we’ve seen stars like Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker, and Justin and Hailey Bieber race down the aisle. Ariana Grande has had not one but two ultra-fast engagements — first to Pete Davidson in 2018 and then to her now ex-husband Dalton Gomez in 2020. But lightning-fast celebrity engagements certainly aren’t a new thing!
For decades, celebrities have done a great job of falling in love quickly — and also falling out of love quickly. Some of these engagements had a short shelf life, but they always provided interesting moments in the press. Sometimes these celebs make it down the aisle and prove everyone wrong — we’re looking at you, longtime bachelor George Clooney — while other relationships were seriously short-lived. (Hey, no shade, Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries.) No matter what, a short engagement can lead to a long marriage as long as it’s with the right person.
Take a look at these celebrity couples who got engaged (and married!) quickly.
A version of this article was originally published in February 2021.
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Carey Mulligan & Marcus Mumford
This might be one of the most romantic lightening quick engagements in Hollywood. Carey Mulligan and Mumford & Sons frontman Marcus Mumford were childhood penpals. The two reconnected as adults in spring of 2011, and in August, Mumford popped the question.
The two tied the knot in April 2012 and have welcomed daughter Evelyn and son Wilfred together.
Pamela Anderson & Tommy Lee
Arguably one of the most infamous celeb engagements was that of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee. The couple wed in February 1995 after knowing each for only four days.
The former couple went on to have two sons, Brandon (born 1996) and Dylan (born 1997). They divorced in 1998. The couple’s relationship and their sex tape scandal was revisited in the 2022 Hulu series Pam & Tommy.
Ariana Grande & Dalton Gomez
Ariana Grande and Dalton Gomez were first linked in Feb 2020, and within less than a year, they got engaged in Dec 2020. They wed in May 2021, but called it quits in the summer of 2023.
Kourtney Kardashian & Travis Barker
Although they’d known each other for years, Travis Barker and Kourtney Kardashian still shocked fans when they announced their engagement after less than a year of dating — about nine months, to be exact.
When it came to the October 2021 proposal, Barker went all out. The famed drummer arranged bouquets of roses on the beach to surround him and Kardashian as he popped the question.
The couple married in 2022 and welcomed their first baby in 2023. Kardashian shares three kids with former partner Scott Disick and Barker was previously married to Shanna Moakler, with whom he shares two children.
Amal & George Clooney
Nobody thought George Clooney would ever get married — including George Clooney himself. The game-changer was when the Oscar-winner met Amal Alamuddin, an international law and human rights lawyer, in 2014.
Clooney wasted very little time and proposed to her seven months later. The couple not only married, but they are also now parents to twins Alexander and Ella.
Shailene Woodley & Aaron Rodgers
Shailene Woodley and NFL star Aaron Rodgers relationship was a secret that was easy to keep, thanks to the pandemic. The two started dating sometime in 2020.
Rodgers dropped the bomb that he was engaged in 2021. Woodley also confirmed the news to Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, “For us, it’s not new news,” she said. “So it’s kind of funny, everybody right now is freaking out over it, and we’re like, ‘We’ve been engaged for a while.'”
They broke up in 2022.
Brooklyn Beckham & Nicola Peltz
Brooklyn Beckham and actress Nicola Peltz began dating in January 2020, and took their love behind closed doors due to the pandemic. It looks like all that time together created a magical connection and resulted in an engagement six months later.
The married in a lavish Miami wedding ceremony in 2022.
Katherine Schwarzenegger & Chris Pratt
Chris Pratt pulled off a romantic proposal to Katherine Schwarzenegger in January 2019, after just seven months of dating — and she said yes! The couple, who met in church, didn’t waste any time making it official, either: They got married in June 2019.
Justin & Hailey Bieber
Even though they met as teens and often interacted at church events, these lovebirds hit fast-forward the moment they started dating.
After on-off, back and forth romances with Hailey Baldwin and Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber split from Gomez for good in 2018 and propsed to Hailey swiftly after.
The model said yes in July 2018, the couple married in September 2018 and have been a solid unit ever since.
Kim Kardashian & Kris Humphries
Who could forget this ill-fated romance? Three months after Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries started dating in 2011, they were engaged. The NBA player never quite fit into the Kardashian world, though, and their 72-day marriage proved that. Humphries kept it classy by selling Kardashian’s engagement ring for $749,000 at a public auction in 2013.
Demi Lovato & Max Ehrich
Demi Lovato and Max Ehrich’s lockdown romance began at the start of the pandemic in March 2020, and by July, they were engaged. The super-fast love affair fizzled just as quickly as it began and they split in September.
Reese Witherspoon & Jim Toth
Reese Witherspoon and agent Jim Toth might not have been as lightning-fast as some of the other couples on this list, but they were engaged within eight months of the start of their relationship in 2010. They married three months later and welcomed a son, Tennessee James, in September 2012.
They got divorced in April 2023.
Priyanka Chopra & Nick Jonas
Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas’ romance started as an Instagram flirtation in the late spring of 2018, which led to a round of speed dating and a July engagement while they were on vacation.
If that wasn’t fast enough for you, they were married in India in December that same year celebrating with traditional Hindu and Christian ceremonies.
Joe Manganiello & Sofia Vergara
Joe Manganiello wasted no time in courting Sofía Vergara and once he knew that she was the one, he proposed seven months into their relationship. The best part of their story is that Magic Mike 2 co-stars Channing Tatum and Matt Bomer had a hand in his proposal and gave him ring advice.
They later got divorced in the summer of 2023.
Miley Cyrus & Liam Hemsworth
Miley and Liam were an on-again, off-again couple when they dated and were engaged the first time around. But it was the second time around with her “re-engagement ring” that took everyone by surprise. They did everything quickly with marriage coming a few months later in December 2018 and their unfortunate split in August of 2019.
Cameron Diaz & Benji Madden
Cameron Diaz had many high-profile relationships (think Justin Timberlake!) before meeting Benji Madden. They quietly started dating in early 2014, were engaged eight months later, and married in January 2015 at her Beverly Hills home.
This low-key strategy has been a hallmark of their relationship who keep their marriage and two kids, Raddix and Cardinal, out of the public eye.
Lamar Odom & Khloe Kardashian
Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom were smitten the moment they met in 2009. Within two weeks, the couple were engaged — and they put momager Kris Jenner on notice by scheduling the wedding two weeks after that. Of course, Keeping Up with the Kardashians captured it all on-camera.
The couple’s bliss didn’t last long though, as addiction, infidelity, and Odom’s near-death experience became a huge part of their struggle. They divorced in 2016.
Pete Davidson & Ariana Grande
Pete Davidson and Ariana Grande rapidly put a ring on it, dating for three weeks before Davidson proposed in June 2018.
The bliss would be short-lived, though, as the couple was dunzo by October.
Britney Spears & Kevin Federline
Britney Spears dated her back-up dancer, Kevin Federline, for just three months before they got engaged in 2004. The trip down the aisle happened later that year and two boys, Sean and Preston, soon followed. The couple divorced in 2007.
Kaley Cuoco & Ryan Sweeting
The Flight Attendant’s Kaley Cuoco had a whirlwind romance with professional tennis player Ryan Sweeting in the summer of 2013. After three months of dating, the couple was engaged and set to tie the knot on New Year’s Eve of the same year.
The marriage lasted two years until the duo ultimately called it quits in September 2015.
Katie Holmes & Tom Cruise
Where do we begin with this one? Couch-jumping on The Oprah Winfrey Show? The professions of love on every red carpet? In 2005, Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise baffled the world with their unexpected romance and Eiffel Tower engagement seven weeks later.
Daughter Suri Cruise arrived in April 2006 and their wedding happened in November that same year. The odd pairing lasted until 2012 when Holmes blindsided Cruise with divorce papers.
Jennifer Lopez & Marc Anthony
Just after Bennifer split in 2004, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony hooked up, got engaged and then married four months later. We have no idea of the exact engagement timeline to this day because Anthony was still finalizing his divorce with Dayanara Torres while he was engaged to J.Lo. Lopez and Anthony got married the same week the divorce papers were signed. Talk about a quick turnaround time! They divorced in 2011 but not before welcoming twins Max and Emme.
Katy Perry & Russell Brand
Two months after Katy Perry and Russell Brand started dating in 2010, the duo got engaged. While they seemed like an opposites-attract couple from the start, their elaborate Indian wedding looked pretty spectacular. Their happily-ever-after ended with a text message from Brand after 14 months of marriage.
Mariah Carey & Nick Cannon
We’re not really sure Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon ever had an official engagement given how fast their timeline played out. They enjoyed their shoot for Carey’s “Bye Bye” music video so much that they began dating in early spring 2008 and married six weeks later. The pop diva said there was a good reason why it happened so fast.
“Our desire to have children became a force of nature and why we got married so quickly,” she told People. Twins Moroccan and Monroe came along soon after, but so did a 2016 divorce.
Billy Bob Thornton & Angelina Jolie
This story was messy because Billy Bob Thornton was engaged to Laura Dern when he took up with Angelina Jolie in 2000, carried on an affair behind his fiancée’s back, and then proposed to and eloped with Jolie. This all happened within two months, and that’s how Dern found out her relationship was over — through the media.
The couple went around wearing each other’s blood in vials around their necks, which seemed… strange. Jolie defended their marriage to The New York Times, saying, “I don’t think there’s anything weird about us… I’m just a very normal woman who is crazy about her man.” They divorced in 2003.
Lyle Lovett & Julia Roberts
We have to go way back into the archives of gossip history to dust this one off. Once upon a time, Julia Roberts met, got engaged to, and married country singer Lyle Lovett — and stunned the world in 1993.
The wedding happened on his tour stop in Marion, Indiana, where she got up on-stage that night and introduced the crooner. The pair had been dating for all of thee weeks.
“Ladies and gentlemen, my husband… Lyle Lovett,” she announced and then gave him a kiss in front of his fans. As the biggest female celebrity star at the time and in a pre-social media era, no one was prepared for the news. The couple divorced in 1995.
