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14 Apr

15 celebrities in Hollywood who got engaged – and

Earlier this week, when Millie Bobby Brown announced her engagement to Jake Bongiovi (son of musician, Jon Bon Jovi), many reacted with shock — and, even, disapproval. Many felt congratulations were to ensure that the couple, who’ve been together for 2 and a half years. But several critical Netizens couldn’t shake the undeniable fact that the “Stranger Things” star was betrothed at just 19 years old. 

What followed was online discourse about when the suitable age for marriage is, with some commenting on the complexities of marrying young and others bashing the couple’s recent decision. The talk later accompanied the trending hashtag #Shes19, under which critics commented that Brown was “far too young” to be engaged or take into consideration marriage. Some anticipated a looming divorce and a life filled with regret, with one asserting that at 19, Brown doesn’t have her life discovered.

On the crux of all of it is Brown’s own fame and public image. Brown secured her first major acting role when she was 12 years old as Eleven on Netflix’s hit series “Stranger Things.” From then on, she’s maintained her tween/teen persona and played similar juvenile characters in “Enola Holmes” and “Godzilla vs. Kong.” So, it comes as no surprise that her ardent fanbase, who often struggle to distinguish her from the characters she plays, have reacted so strongly. Of their eyes, Brown is each Eleven (character) and 11 (age) — a cringey association and joke that has been made time and time again.

In Hollywood, celebrities getting engaged — and married — at a really young age has been a standard occurrence. While some relationships have been celebrated, others have been heavily criticized over their vast age gaps, which have also raised questions on consent, autonomy and agency. It’s a difficult topic that continues to be divisive and controversial.

Alongside Brown and Bongiovi, here’s a more in-depth have a look at 15 celebrities in Hollywood who got engaged — and, eventually, married — at a really young age:

Tao Ruspoli and wife Olivia Wilde attend the Dior Beauty fifth Annual Hollywood Glamour dinner held at Chateau Marmont on March 4, 2010 in West Hollywood, California. (Brian To/WireImage/Getty Images)

Wilde and Ruspoli — the son of aristocrat Prince Alessandro Ruspoli, ninth Prince of Cerveteri and Austrian-American actress Debra Berger — tied the knot in 2003 when Wilde was 19 years old and Ruspoli was 28.

 

“I actually had a way that I had stunted my growth. I believe that is certainly one of the things that made me feel so uncomfortable in my marriage,” Wilde told Lifetime’s “The Conversation With Amanda de Cadenet” in 2012. “It was really no fault of my husband. It was me realizing that I had type of arrested development. I knew the one way I used to be going to grow the f**k up was to learn to handle myself.”

 

In a 2013 interview with Marie Claire, she said, “I had grown up with Tao; we had just drifted. I felt I had something to prove. If you happen to fall off a horse, you get back up. I’m not a quitter. I held on for so long as possible, until it was more hurtful to remain.”

 

Wilde filed for divorce on March 3, 2011, citing “irreconcilable differences.” The pair’s divorce was finalized on September 29, 2011.

Kardashian was just 18 years old when she met Thomas, a music producer who was 10 years her senior. The pair eloped in 2001, a yr after meeting one another.

 

Years later, Kardashian recalled her first marriage in an episode of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” saying she was high on during her wedding night. “I did ecstasy once and I got married. I did it again, I made a sex tape. Like, all the pieces bad would occur,” she said.

 

Kardashian later accused Thomas of domestic violence, stating in court documents obtained by the Day by day Mail, “Damon decided what we’d do and after we would do it. He was very much the King of the castle.” Thomas also forced her to quit college, would not let her work and didn’t allow her to go away the home without his permission. Kardashian added that Thomas also grew increasingly violent after their marriage and started hitting her on multiple occasions.

 

The pair eventually divorced in 2004.

 

“I was once so depending on the fellows I used to be in a relationship with,” Kardashian said in a 2011 interview with Harper’s Bazaar. “I do not know why, because I wasn’t raised that way. If I checked out myself at 19, I might shake myself and be like, ‘Get up; you might be way too smart for this!'”

Drew Barrymore and her husband Jeremy ThomasActress Drew Barrymore and her husband Jeremy Thomas attend the premiere of “Bad Girls” April 19, 1994 in Los Angeles, CA. (Barry King/Liaison/Getty Images)

Amid her rising fame and struggles with childhood drug and alcohol addiction, Barrymore met Thomas at his bar in Los Angeles in 1994. On March 20, 1994, Barrymore, who was 19, and Thomas, who was 31, spontaneously got married at his bar after a friend suggested the concept to the couple. Their marriage, nevertheless, was short-lived because the pair called it quits just 19 days later.

 

In 2019, Barrymore recalled her controversial marriage, telling Star, “I noticed my mistake the day I married him.” Barrymore had filed for divorce and claimed that Thomas, who’s British, had only married her for money and a green card.

 

“He turned out to be the largest schmuck I’ve ever met,” she said. “He gained all the pieces. . . . It was a green card situation. That is why I could not tell anybody.”

Macaulay Culkin & Rachel MinerMacaulay Culkin & Rachel Miner (SGranitz/WireImage/Getty Images)

The pair originally met at Latest York’s Skilled Kid’s School and after two years of dating, tied the knot in 1998 once they were each 17 years old. Only one yr prior, Culkin was granted emancipation from his parents after claiming that his father mismanaged his earnings and made him sleep on the couch.

 

Culkin and Miner’s bombshell marriage and young age garnered widespread media and tabloid attention. The couple eventually split in April of 2000 and per Macaulay’s representative on the time, “It is extremely amicable they usually remain better of friends.”

 

Their divorce was finalized in 2002.

Janet Jackson and James DeBargeJanet Jackson and James DeBarge in July 1984 (Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images)

Jackson and DeBarge began dating within the early ’80s, when Jackson was 16 and DeBarge was in his late teens. In her recent A&E docuseries, Jackson reminisced about their relationship, saying the pair developed a connection based on their similar backgrounds in musical families.

 

In 1984, Jackson and DeBarge secretly wed, with Jackson receiving the blessings from her sister LaToya Jackson. Janet Jackson was 18 years old while DeBarge was 21 years old. In 1985, the wedding was annulled on account of DeBarge’s addiction to painkillers and sleeping pills.

 

Jackson said in her documentary that she suspected DeBarge was using drugs on their wedding day when he left her alone at a hotel after they got married: 

 

“He said, ‘OK, I will be right back,'” she recalled. “And I’m sitting in a hotel room in Grand Rapids, Michigan, by myself, just 18. And for 3 hours, he never got here back.

 

“I remember times once I would find the pills and I might take them and check out to flush them down the bathroom, and we might be rolling around on the ground fighting for them. That is not a life for anyone,” Jackson added.

 

She continued, “I cared a lot for him, and I saw the nice in him as well, and I just wanted that to take precedence versus this ugliness, because I knew that he needed help. But I wasn’t the assistance that he needed.”

 

Jackson also addressed the decades-long rumor that she had a “secret child” with DeBarge. The rumor was further pushed by DeBarge, who told Radar Online in 2017 that his child with Jackson was “not a secret” and that a girl had reached out to him to disclose herself as his daughter. It was later revealed that the lady and DeBarge weren’t related in any respect.   

 

“I could never keep a toddler away from James,” Jackson said. “How could I keep a toddler from their father? I could never do this, that is not right.”

Bo Derek; John DerekActress, Bo Derek, best known for her nude role within the film, Ten, along with her director husband, John (Getty Images / Bettmann / Contributor)

Bo met actor, director and producer John on the set of his 1981 drama film “Fantasies.” An underage Bo had been forged within the film’s lead role and appeared in several risqué scenes, including ones that required her to be fully nude, per John’s request. The pair eventually began a romantic affair during filming, when Bo was 17 years of age and John was 46. 

 

The eyebrow-raising age gap was met with loads of backlash, a lot in order that certainly one of Bo’s agents even threatened to press charges of statutory rape against John. But that wasn’t enough to persuade the pair to call it quits and as a substitute, they moved to Germany to avoid any legal troubles and only returned to the states when Bo turned 18.

 

Bo and John tied the knot in 1976, when the she was 19 and he was 49. They’d been married nearly 22 years until John’s death in 1998.

 

“I do not learn about you, but once I was 17, I knew all the pieces,” Bo said in a 2020 interview with Variety. “I used to be so grown up and so adult. Now, once I look back on the photos of me, I used to be young – 17 is young.”

 

She continued, “There was no #MeToo-ing with John. But, yeah, I’m very conflicted about (the age gap) once I look back. . . .  It felt right on the time. I used to be so in love with him, and we ended up together for 25 years. I’m just so grateful he was a superb person.”

Melanie Griffith and Don JohnsonActors Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson attend the “How To Be Single” Latest York premiere at NYU Skirball Center on February 3, 2016 in Latest York City. (Jim Spellman/WireImage/Getty Images)

Griffith and Johnson met in 1972 on the set of the coming-of-age film “The Harrad Experiment,” wherein Johnson starred alongside Griffith’s mother Tippi Hedren. Griffith was 14 on the time and worked as an additional on the film while Johnson was 22. The 2 began dating and later moved right into a rental home together in Hollywood when Griffith was 15 and Johnson was 23. In January 1976, Griffith and Johnson got married when Griffith was 19 and Johnson was 27. They separated that July and divorced in November.

 

In 1989, the pair rekindled their relationship and together had daughter Dakota Johnson. They were married once more from that yr until 1996.

Marilyn Monroe James DoughertyNorma Jeane Baker, future film star Marilyn Monroe (1926 – 1962), along with her first husband, Merchant Marine James Dougherty (1921 – 2005) in Avalon, Santa Catalina Island, circa 1943. (Silver Screen Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

On June 19, 1942, Monroe married LAPD policeman Dougherty, who was 21 years old, when she was 16 years old. In response to Schani Krug, producer of the documentary “Marilyn’s Man,” the pair met at Van Nuys High School in California. Their relationship, nevertheless, wasn’t rooted in romance. Fairly, it was an escape for Monroe, who frolicked in an orphanage when her mother, Gladys Baker, and her maternal grandparents were institutionalized for mental health.

 

Per biographer Barbara Learning, Grace McKee, Gladys’ friend, was appointed Monroe’s legal guardian: “McKee announced she and (her husband) were moving to West Virginia and will not take Norma Jeane with them. She offered Norma Jeane a selection: either she married a young man Grace had chosen, or she would must return to the orphanage.” Monroe selected the previous.

 

In his biography “Marilyn Monroe,” Donald Spoto quoted Monroe describing her marriage to Dougherty: “My marriage didn’t make me sad, nevertheless it didn’t make me glad, either. My husband and I hardly spoke to one another. This wasn’t because we were offended. We had nothing to say. I used to be dying of boredom.”

 

Monroe eventually filed for divorce in 1946, when she was 20 years of age. In 1997, Doughtery wrote a book titled, “To Norma Jeane with Love.”

Elizabeth Taylor sits with Conrad Hilton Jr.Elizabeth Taylor sits with Conrad Hilton Jr. in a booth on the El Morocco nightclub (Getty Images / Bettmann / Contributor)

The pair got married on May 6, 1950, when Taylor was 18 and Hilton Jr., heir to the Hilton Hotels chain, was 24. The actual wedding was a grand media event, considering that 3,000 fans (all standing outside the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills) and 600 guests were in attendance. MGM also organized and covered all the marriage expenses, including Taylor’s $3,500 dress.

 

On Jan. 29, 1951, Taylor filed for divorce after realizing that she and Hilton Jr. had only a few interests in common and that he was abusive and an alcoholic. Following Hilton Jr.’s death in 1969, Hilton Jr.’s stepmother Zsa Zsa Gabor claimed that she had an affair with Hilton Jr. in 1944, when he was 18.

Jovovich married her on-screen boyfriend Shawn Andrews in 1992 while filming the coming-of-age film “Dazed and Confused.” In response to Jonathan Burkhart, certainly one of the film’s producers, “Milla Jovovich and Shawn Andrews were at all times stoned and staring into one another’s eyes. They were at all times making out. At all times.” 

 

Actor Catherine Avril Morris added, “They’d an extended row of individual forged member trailers, and Milla and Shawn were just doin’ it every night. Because all of our trailers were connected, they’d all be rocking.”

 

On the time of their marriage, Jovovich was 16 years old while Andrews was 21. Two months later, the wedding was annulled by Jovovich’s mother, Russian-American actress Galina Jovovich. The pair remained married for 10 months before they divorced in December 1993.

Doug Hutchison; Courtney StoddenActor Doug Hutchison (L) and TV Personality Courtney Stodden (R) attend the listening party for Jason Derulo’s “The whole lot Is 4” at The Argyle on April 15, 2015 in Hollywood, California. (Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic/Getty Images)

The “Celebrity Big Brother” alum garnered public attention in 2011, once they tied the knot with character actor Doug Hutchison. The controversial relationship first began over email, where Hutchison shared acting advice with Stodden. Only per week after their first meeting, Hutchison convinced Stodden’s parents that they need to get married as soon as possible.

 

On the time of the wedding, Stodden was 16 while Hutchison was 51. Stodden later accused Hutchison of becoming “extremely emotionally abusive” and physically abusive.

 

“I believe that is the last word power a groomer has over a toddler, that emotional abuse and control,” they said on an episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast. “I feel like I didn’t even have control over my very own body, my very own funds.”

 

After separating and reconciling multiple times, the couple called it quits in 2016. Stodden recounted the tumultuous marriage of their upcoming memoir, telling Fox News, “And that is really certainly one of the fundamental the explanation why I’m speaking out is because I need past victims and survivors to essentially tap into that a part of themselves. We’re so strong. It just really made me very fearless.”

Moore’s first marriage was to musician Freddy Moore, who was 29 years old, when the actor was 18. Prior to their marriage, Moore began using Freddy’s surname as her stage name and continued to accomplish that even after their divorce was finalized on August 7, 1985. 

 

In her memoir “Inside Out,” Moore looked back on her relationship with Freddy and revealed that she was unfaithful to the musician before their wedding night:

 

“The night before we got married, as a substitute of working on my vows, I used to be calling a man I’d met on a movie set,” Moore wrote, per People. “I snuck out of my very own bachelorette party and went to his apartment.”

 

She continued, “Why did I do this? Why didn’t I am going and see the person I used to be committing to spend the remaining of my life with to precise my doubts? Because I could not face the undeniable fact that I used to be getting married to distract myself from grieving the death of my father. Because I felt there was no room to query what I’d already put in motion. I could not get out of the wedding, but I could sabotage it.”

Rumors regarding the pair’s infamous relationship first circulated in 1994, when a then 14-year-old Aaliyah recorded her debut album “Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number” with R. Kelly as a lead songwriter and producer on the project. Following the album’s release, many speculated that there was a relationship between the 15-year-old Aaliyah and the 27-year-old who was also her mentor and later, a convicted sex offender.

 

The pair secretly married in August 1994 — marriage certificates falsified Aaliyah’s age as 18. In February 1995, the wedding was annulled by Aaliyah’s parents. 

 

In Lifetime’s bombshell docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly,” it was revealed that R. Kelly had silenced Aaliyah and her family through a non-disclosure agreement following the pair’s marriage.

 

“It is a harrowing document,” journalist Jim DeRogatis, who first broke news of R. Kelly’s sexual abuse greater than twenty years ago, told The Latest York Times. “A non-disclosure agreement on each her part and Kelly’s, vowing to not pursue further legal claims for physical abuse. So, it wasn’t just an underage sexual relationship, he hit her, allegedly, in response to that court document.”

 

The documentary’s executive producer Jesse Daniels also told Variety that the manufacturing team hoped to highlight the abuse that Aaliyah had endured as a young person without exploiting the late singer:

 

“We’ve got had a number of conversations about the way to tell Aaliyah’s story each time because we actually need to be respectful of her legacy,” Daniels said. “But what she went through, we won’t turn our backs on.”

Sonny Bono & CherEntertainers Sonny Bono & Cher pose for a portrait session at home in August 1966 in Los Angeles, California. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

From 1964 to 1975, Cher was married to her singing partner Sonny Bono. The pair met at a celebration in 1962, when Cher had just dropped out of highschool and moved to Los Angeles to pursue her dreams of creating it in Hollywood. The day after the party, she learned that Bono, who was 28 on the time, was moving in round the corner to her apartment. Initially roommates, the pair quickly became lovers and tied the knot in 1964, when Cher was 18 and Bono was 29.

 

Together, Cher and Bono became a Hollywood “It” couple and rose to popularity because the pop duo Sonny & Cher. Nonetheless, their relationship wasn’t what it seemed. In 2010, Cher told Parade that Bono had change into controlling following their marriage: “He didn’t want me to grow up or have any freedom. I wasn’t allowed to do anything except work. We worked greater than we lived.” There have been also issues with infidelity.

 

Cher filed for divorce in 1974, citing “involuntary servitude.” Their divorce was finalized in 1975.

Ava Gardner; Mickey RooneyAmerican actors Ava Gardner (1922 – 1990) and Mickey Rooney smile while sitting together behind a table at a charity event. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Gardner was only 19 years old when she married fellow MGM contract player and actor Mickey Rooney, who was 22, on January 10, 1942. Gardner divorced Rooney on May 21, 1943, citing mental cruelty and later, disclosing his infidelity and gambling habits.

 

“That does not imply I let Mick off the hook. I brought up his cheating on a regular basis. I could not help myself. We fought always. ‘I’ve had it with you, you little s**t,’ I’d scream at him,” Gardner told Vanity Fair’s Peter Evans. “He’d look all hurt and innocent — an actual Andy Hardy look. Boy, he was some actor. He’d say that nobody could love me greater than he did. Nobody might be more faithful than he was. Not once did he admit to two-timing me. Neither did he ever say he was sorry.”

 

Following their split, the 2 remained close friends:

 

“Being married to Ava Gardner was one of the crucial memorable moments of my life,” Rooney reflected in an orientation film for the Ava Gardner Museum. “And I wish her well wherever she is.”

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