Nick Lachey's first marriage doesn't seem so irresistible in hindsight.
The 98 Degrees singer—who was married to Jessica Simpson from 2002 to 2006—recently shared a small glimpse into their relationship, saying that he still deals with the lingering pain of their split nearly two decades later.
"I, too, was previously married, divorced," Nick told a contestant on season three of The Ultimatum, now on Netflix, "so I understand the hurt, the scars that exist from that."
He ultimately had to put those fears aside before marrying second wife Vanessa Lachey in 2011.
"Don’t let your past define your future," Nick shared. "What I truly always wanted in my life, which was to have a beautiful marriage and a beautiful family, if I hadn’t retained my belief in that, I wouldn’t have ever realized the beautiful life I have with this woman."
Nick, 51, and Jessica, 44, first met at a Hollywood Christmas Parade in Los Angeles in 1998 before he popped the question in February 2002.
"Nick Lachey asked me to marry him in a very romantic way and I said yeeeeeeeeeeeessssss!!!" she wrote on her website at the time, per People. "He had been patiently waiting for me to grow up a little (which I needed). And I did! Now my life feels so perfect."
The "I Wanna Love You Forever" singer later revealed that the proposal was very casual and took her by surprise.
"I was wearing a huge sweatshirt that came down to my knees," she told the outlet the following year. "If I had known he was going to propose, I would have at least dressed up cute."
After tying the knot in Texas later that year, the couple showcased their romance on Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica—but it was just three years later that she filed for divorce, citing "irreconcilable differences" as the reason for the split.
Still, Jessica doesn't regret putting their love story in the spotlight with the MTV reality show.
"I don't regret that at all. I mean, if anything, it was great TV," she explained on The Real in 2022. "It was very real, and Nick and I actually had a lot of fun."
But that doesn't mean they wanna love each other forever. In the years since their split, the exes have offered some subtle digs at one another, with Nick—who shares kids Camden, 12, Brooklyn, 9, and Phoenix, 7, with Vanessa—quipping on Love Is Blind season three in 2022 that marriage "is always better the second time."
As for Jessica—who shares kids Maxwell, 12, Ace, 11, and Birdie Mae, 5, with Eric Johnson—she recently appeared to shade Nick by reacting to fans saying they recently realized that the “What’s Left of Me” artist was the show's main villain all along. In response, Jessica told Bustle in a 2023 interview, "It's amazing what publicity can do."
Read on for more couples you forgot dated.
Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis
They played doomed lovers twice, in 1990's Too Young to Die? and 1993's Kalifornia, but in real life they had a perfectly lovely relationship.
"I still love the woman," Pitt, who was Lewis' date to the 1992 Oscars when she scored a Supporting Actress nomination for Cape Fear, told Vanity Fair in February 1995. "There's some real genius there. I had a great time with her...It was one of the greatest relationships I've ever been in. The problem is, we grow up with this vision that love conquers all, and that's just not so, is it?"
Winona Ryder & Matt Damon
It wasn't just a Gen X fever dream, they really closed out the 20th century as a couple after, legend has it, being introduced by Gwyneth Paltrow (who famously dated Damon's best bud Ben Affleck). They split up in 2000.
After the fact, Damon called Ryder a "great woman" in a 2004 Playboy interview, while Ryder told Black Book in 2009, "Matt couldn't be a greater, nicer guy. I'm really lucky that I'm on good terms with him."
Cameron Diaz & Justin Timberlake
There was something about their chemistry at the 2003 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, where Diaz presented Timberlake with the award for Best Burp—because they dated for almost four years, seriously enough to issue a statement when their relationship ended in 2007, "mutually and as friends, with continued love and respect for one another."
Alec Baldwin & Kristin Davis
The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself, but Sex and the City alum Kristin Davis still had a good time dating Alec Baldwin when she was starring on the HBO series.
Referencing an old flame who ended things after she loaned him $5,000, Kristin made it clear on a February 2025 episode of the Literally! With Rob Lowe podcast that the mystery man was definitively not the three-time Emmy winner.
"Alec Baldwin was so rich by the time I dated Alec Baldwin," Kristin shared. “I would have never needed to lend Alec $5,000. Oh my God.”
David Moscow & Kerry Washington
The Scandal star appeared on the cover of InStyle Weddings in 2005 when she was engaged to the Big actor, but they split up in 2007.
Madonna & Tupac Shakur
Madonna never addressed the story that she dated the rapper, who was killed in 1996 when he was only 25, until 2015. When Howard Stern brought up her infamously feisty 1994 chat with David Letterman, she explained, "I was dating Tupac at the time, and the thing is...he got me all riled up on life in general."
Jake Gyllenhaal & Reese Witherspoon
After her divorce from Ryan Phillippe and before marrying agent Jim Toth, Reese starred with Jake in the 2007 thriller Rendition and they dated for a couple of years.
"She is, as I would say about most of the women who I'm close friends with or had relationships in my life," Jake said admiringly of his ex, "one of the smartest, strongest people I've ever met."
Jesse Metcalfe & Scheana Shay
The Vanderpump Rules alum detailed her mid-2000s romance with the Desperate Housewives actor in her 2025 memoir My Good Side.
“We would order in dinner with his parents at his house, and—when we were alone—he would play the guitar and serenade me with songs like ‘Hey There Delilah,’” she wrote. “It felt like I was living a real-life fantasy with this guy I’d watched on TV and in movies for years.”
Meg Tilly & Colin Firth
Before marrying Livia Giuggioli in 1997 (they separated in 2019), Firth had a five-year relationship with Tilly that produced son William Joseph Firth, who was born Sept. 20, 1990. The younger Firth is also an actor who appeared with his father in Bridget Jones's Baby.
Mandy Moore & Andy Roddick
This was them: The U.S. Open champ courted the A Walk to Remember star between 2003 and 2004, but ultimately it wasn't a love match.
"He broke my heart," Moore told Howard Stern in 2018. "I was a kid, he was a kid. I started dating him when I was 18."
Dave Coulier & Alanis Morissette
You oughta know by now that one of the most enduring mysteries in music history is who exactly inspired Morissette's iconic 1995 single—and the Full House star is at the top of the list of maybes! Morissette denied it in the 2021 documentary Jagged, but that's a tough pill to swallow.
Alanis Morissette & Ryan Reynolds
"Oh yeah, I love her music," Reynolds told People of his then-fiancée in 2005. "It can be awkward when she walks in and I'm listening to it in my underwear dancing."
The music stopped for the Canadians in 2007, but their breakup after four years together was very polite.
January Jones & Jason Sudeikis
You can't blame the Mad Men star for liking funny guys. Jones and Sudeikis dated for a few months in 2010, five years before she briefly dated Will Forte.
Minnie Driver & Matt Damon
The Good Will Hunting stars paired off in real life, too, but they didn't drive off into the sunset together.
"Well, I'm single," Damon said on The Oprah Winfrey Show in January 1998. "I was with Minnie for a while, but we're not really romantically involved anymore. We're just really good friends, and I love her dearly….I care about her a lot. We care about each other a lot. It wasn't meant to be, you know? And if it's not meant to be, then it's not meant to be."
The pronouncement was a bit too public for Driver's taste. "It's unfortunate that Matt went on Oprah," she told the LA Times later that year. "It seemed like a good forum for him to announce to the world that we were no longer together, which I found fantastically inappropriate."
Helen Mirren & Liam Neeson
The stars met on the set of the 1981 movie Excalibur and eventually lived together (Neeson says Mirren gave him his first driving lessons) before they broke up in the mid-'80s.
"I should be so lucky and be honored to have spent three or four years with that lady," Neeson told ET Canada in February 2023. "She's really something else."
Jeff Goldblum & Laura Dern
Finding love in Jurassic Park? What a meat cute.
The co-stars began dating after filming the 1993 blockbuster, with Goldblum telling The Chicago Tribune at the time, "I was struck, I'd been a big fan of hers. I think she's an amazing actress, and a spectacular person. I was struck from the beginning. But after the movie we realized we liked each other."
They got engaged in 1995 but ultimately split two years later. They reunited on-screen for the first time in 2022's Jurassic World: Dominion, the sixth installment in the franchise.
Gillian Anderson and Peter Morgan
The X-Files alum was in a relationship with The Crown creator between 2016 and 2020. Anderson won an Emmy for her turn as Margaret Thatcher in the Netflix hit in 2020.
David Arquette and Ellen Barkin
According to Arquette, the two dated while filming their 1995 Western Wild Bill.
Jeremy Sisto & Reese Witherspoon
The Clueless actor confirmed a little-known rumor during a Reddit AMA chat in November 2015, revealing that he used to date the actress. The two had starred in the 1992 TV movie Desperate Choices: To Save My Child.
"She was my first actress girlfriend," he said. "We had a long distance relationship for a long time. I was so into her."
Bethenny Frankel & Eric Stonestreet
E! News exclusively broke the news that the Real Housewives of New York star and Modern Family actor were a pair in 2015. But by the following year, they had split.
Regina King & Malcolm-Jamal Warner
The Southland alum and the actor, who played Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show, dated for several years before calling it quits in 2013.
Kelly Preston & George Clooney
The famous bachelor was actually settled in with Preston pre-John Travolta back in 1987. They even lived together and shared a potbellied pig named Max before breaking up in 1989.
Val Kilmer & Cher
Why, yes, she does believe in life after love. The Top Gun star and the legendary diva dated back in the '80s following her divorces from Sonny Bono and Gregg Allman.
Seal & Tyra Banks
Before he was Heidi Klum's ex, the "Kiss from a Rose" musician romanced a different supermodel.
Meagan Good & Joseph Gordon-Levitt
The duo reportedly started dating after meeting on the set of the 2005 film Brick, but they only stayed together for six months.
Joshua Jackson & Rosario Dawson
The Dawson's Creek alum and the Josie and the Pussycats star dated for about a year back in 2002.
Chris O'Donnell & Reese Witherspoon
The NCIS: LA stud and America's sweetheart dated way back in 1993, when 17-year-old Witherspoon first moved to Los Angeles.
Sarah Jessica Parker & Robert Downey Jr.
The man who now rocks the Iron Man suit for Marvel admitted that drugs and alcohol were to blame for the end of his seven-year relationship with the Sex and the City star. "I liked to drink, and I had a drug problem, and that didn't jibe with Sarah Jessica," he admitted in an a 2008 interview with Parade, "because it is the furthest thing from what she is. She tried to help me. She was so miffed when I didn't get my act together."
Matthew Perry & Heather Graham
The late Friends alum and The Hangover star supposedly had a fling 2003, but it didn't last long enough to be more than a little blip on the Hollywood hookup radar.
Tom Hiddleston & Kat Dennings
The 2 Broke Girls actress dated her Thor costar briefly in 2010, appearing very cozy while attending Comic-Con to promote the Marvel film. But their relationship fizzled by the time the movie premiered the following year.