1.
We gotta start with an example of a former BuzzFeeder caught in a massive cheating scandal…In 2022, fans noticed that Ned Fulmer was suspiciously absent from videos posted by the Try Guys, BuzzFeed-turned-YouTube stars who regularly posted content. A Reddit user then claimed to have seen Fulmer kissing Try Guys producer Alex Herring at an NYC bar…with video proof.
Days later, the Try Guys announced Ned had been let go, and Ned admitted to the cheating on Instagram, writing, “I’m sorry for any pain that my actions may have caused to the guys and the fans but most of all to Ariel.” This news was especially shocking considering Ned’s online identity was focused around him being a “wife guy.”
2.
Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson became a power couple when they started dating while shooting the Twilight films in the late 2000s. But then in 2012, Us Weekly published photos of Stewart making out with married 41-year-old director Rupert Sanders, who had directed Stewart in Snow White and the Huntsman. Sanders’ wife tweeted one word — “Wow” — before deactivating her account.
Both Stewart and Sanders released apologies, with Stewart saying, “This momentary indiscretion has jeopardized the most important thing in my life, the person I love and respect the most, Rob. I love him, I love him, I’m so sorry.” The two got back together but ultimately split in 2013. As for Sanders, his wife filed for divorce later that year.
3.
Another celeb caught by paparazzi cheating? Dominic West, who is married to Catherine FitzGerald, was photographed kissing Lily James in Rome. The photos — in which West was not wearing his wedding ring — were published in the Daily Mail. West and FitzGerald actually stayed together; they even walked outside their home to waiting paparazzi and passed them a note saying, “Our marriage is strong and we’re very much still together. Thank you.” They also posed and kissed.
4.
Daisy Wright exposed Jude Law for cheating with her when she spoke to the tabloid Sunday Mirror, which broke the news in July 2005. Law was engaged to Sienna Miller at the time. Wright had been working as a nanny for the actor, watching over his kids from a previous marriage as he filmed All the King’s Men in New Orleans, when the affair occurred. After news broke, Law released a statement reading, “I am deeply ashamed and upset that I’ve hurt Sienna.” Law and Miller broke up as a result of the affair.
5.
Ralph Fiennes’s affair was also exposed by his alleged affair partner. Fiennes and Francesca Annis had been in a relationship for many years when singer Cornelia Crisan claimed she’d been having an affair with Fiennes for two years. Fiennes and Annis quickly separated.
6.
Khloé Kardashian and Tristan Thompson began dating in 2016, and in 2017, Khloé became pregnant. Just before their daughter was born, photos came out of Tristan kissing another woman. Video followed the same day, with TMZ releasing footage of Thompson kissing two separate women. The footage was from a few months prior. The two actually stayed together despite the massive scandal, and Khloe gave birth to their daughter True later that month.
This wasn’t the end of Tristan getting exposed for cheating, though — in 2019, it was reported that Thompson had again cheated on Khloé, this time, with her sister Kylie’s best friend, Jordyn Woods. The two were at an afterparty at Tristan’s house, and sources said they were “all over each other.” This led to Khloe breaking up with Tristan and Jordyn’s ousting from the Kardashian empire. Jordyn later denied that the two had slept together, saying Tristan had kissed her once before she left.
Kardashian and Thompson ended up getting back together during the COVID lockdown, before breaking up in mid-2021, apparently due to another cheating allegation, which Thompson denied. In December of that year, it was proven that Thompson had cheated on Khloe while they were together when Maralee Nichols claimed Tristan was the father of her child. Thompson denied this, but confirmed his paternity after taking a test. He apologized to Khloé via an Instagram story, writing, “You don’t deserve the heartache and humiliation I have caused you.” The two are currently coparenting, but not together. They also welcomed a second child via surrogate.
7.
Kevin Hart was also caught cheating on his pregnant wife on video. His wife, Eniko Hart, received an Instagram DM of Kevin and a woman together. “How I found out was a DM. I don’t know who it was. They sent me an edited video of Kevin and, you know, another woman,” she recalled. Meanwhile, rumors circulated online, and Kevin admitted the allegations were true in an Instagram apology video.
8.
Another celeb exposed through a video was NBA player Nick Young, who was then engaged to Iggy Azalea. Rather than footage of Young cheating, it was footage of him admitting to cheating. The two actually stayed together after the scandal, but a few months later, Azalea said she was unable to rebuild trust in him. She also claimed she discovered he’d “brought other women into our home while I was away and caught them on the security footage.” Young’s ex, Keonna Green, quickly revealed she was pregnant with their child, and she and Young ultimately got back together.
9.
I guess it depends on what you consider “cheating,” but to me, this counts…in 2022, Instagram model Sumner Stroh posted a viral TikTok saying she’d had an affair with Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine. She also showed some messages the two had exchanged. The video quickly blew up, and more women came forward to claim Levine had sent them flirty messages. Levine, who’s been married to model Behati Prinsloo since 2014, denied the affair, but admitted to using “poor judgment in speaking with anyone other than my wife in ANY kind of flirtatious manner.”
10.
Again, it depends on what you think is cheating, but I’d argue this counts, too. Basically, at a VMA afterparty, Robin Thicke took a photo with fan Lana Scolaro (see the photo at the link). After the photo was uploaded, people started to notice that you could see Thicke groping Scolaro’s butt in the mirror behind them, which Scolaro then confirmed happened. Thicke — who never addressed the photo — was married to Paula Patton at the time. The photo made waves online, and Thicke and Patton would later divorce.
11.
It’s unclear if this was cheating or not — I’ll let you decide. Basically, Riverdale star Vanessa Morgan outed potential cheating by J.R. Smith when she posted a video of him with The Flash star Candice Patton at a Halloween party, and apparently captioned it “hottest couple.” At the time, Smith was still married to Jewel Harris. In December, Harris publicly accused Patton and Smith of cheating with Candice, though Smith then took to Instagram to say the two had been separated for months, denying that cheating had occurred.
12.
In 1995, Hugh Grant was on top of the world, fresh off his Four Weddings and a Funeral fame and dating Elizabeth Hurley, when he was arrested for paying for oral sex on the Sunset Strip. “Last night I did something completely insane,” he said in a statement after his release. “I have hurt people I love and embarrassed people I work with. For both things I am more sorry than I can ever possibly say.” Grant was ordered to pay a $1000 fine and attend an AIDS class. Grant stayed with Hurley for a few more years before they broke up in 2000.
13.
Back in 2009, Eddie Cibrian was married to Brandi Glanville, and LeAnn Rimes was married to Dean Sheremet. However, Cibrian and Rimes hit it off on the set of Lifetime’s Northern Lights, leading Glanville, at least, to suspect an affair. The news was confirmed when security footage surfaced of Cibrian and Rimes kissing at a restaurant. Us Weekly published the photos, also stating the two had spent three hours at a hotel together. Both married couples then divorced, and Cibrian and Rimes married. They’re still together today.
14.
Kathie Lee Gifford’s husband, Frank Gifford, has one of the wilder stories on this list. In 1997, The Globe, a tabloid, reported that Frank had cheated on Kathie with former flight attendant Suzen Johnson. The Giffords promptly called the story fake…so The Globe released photos from a video they had of the tryst. But wait, it gets worse — fellow tabloid The Enquirer then published a story that The Globe had paid Johnson to seduce Gifford while they recorded. The Giffords stayed together until Frank’s death in 2015.
15.
Back in the 2000s and 2010s, Ashley Madison was a popular dating site with a unique premise: it was to be used for married people who wanted to find affair partners. Users were completely private — until 2015, when hackers found and posted millions of users’ info online. Among those named? 19 Kids and Counting star Josh Duggar, who was married to Anna Keller, released a statement soon after. “I have been the biggest hypocrite ever. While espousing faith and family values, I have secretly over the last several years been viewing pornography on the internet and this became a secret addiction and I became unfaithful to my wife,” he wrote, though he later deleted the mention of porn.
16.
Tiger Woods was at the peak of his career in the 2000s, and his personal life seemed pretty blissful as well: he’d married model Elin Nordegren in 2004, and they had two children together. But in late 2009, Woods’ widely publicized cheating scandal broke. Over a dozen women claimed to have had a relationship with Woods during his marriage, and Woods then checked into treatment for sex addiction. Nordegren divorced him and walked away with $100 million in the settlement.
17.
Sandra Bullock and Jesse James had been married for five years and were in the process of trying to adopt a child when multiple women surfaced in 2010 to claim they’d had affairs with the reality host. The cheating scandal blew up, and James publicly apologized, blaming “poor judgment,” though he denied the “vast majority of the allegations.” (He later admitted to cheating.) The two broke up, and Bullock ultimately adopted on her own.
18.
It may be a stretch to say that Meg Ryan was caught cheating on her then-husband, Dennis Quaid, with Russell Crowe, but there were certainly rumors buzzing about the two actors, who had just recently filmed Proof of Life as costars. Just a week after Ryan and Quaid’s publicists announced their split, People was speculating that Ryan and Crowe had been romantic during filming – and the New York Post full-out claimed they’d now gone public with their romance by attending a premiere together. The rumored affair became a media frenzy, and Ryan was certainly “exposed” for the cheating — and villainized in the media — proof or not.
19.
Britney Spears was, IMO, unfairly publicly “exposed” for cheating on Justin Timberlake. He didn’t *quite* expose her, but in the wake of their breakup, he heavily implied she’d cheated by casting a lookalike in his music video for “Cry Me A River” and through his public comments. Spears faced intense flak for the breakup. Many years later, when she released her memoir, she finally confirmed she had cheated by kissing Wade Robson. However, she also claimed Justin had cheated first…multiple times.
20.
In 2019, Halsey appeared to publicly expose an ex for cheating. While performing her song “Without Me” on SNL, text appeared on the stage behind her, reading “I’m so sorry Ashley I cheated” with multiple places popping up, such as “At home in Los Angeles,” and “In Minneapolis,” along with “more places I can’t even remember.” While she didn’t say who she was referring to, her most recent ex had been G-Eazy, and fans assumed she was referring to him.
21.
And finally, David Letterman was exposed for cheating on his wife — with women on his show, no less — after being extorted. He actually technically exposed himself, admitting to the affair on live TV in 2009, but I’m still counting it, as it seems unlikely he would have spoken if not for the blackmail. Before admitting to the affair, Letterman had found a letter in his car reading, “I know you do some terrible things,” and stating that the writer was working on a screenplay about Letterman. “He’s going to take all this terrible stuff he knows about my life and put it in a movie unless I give him some money,” Letterman said in the episode, before admitting to having had sex with female workers on his show.
What cheating scandal still shocks you to this day? Let us know in the comments!
