18 Celebs That Went Above Their Status And Dated Royals
Dating is this giant adventure that comes with so many unpredictable curveballs it can be overwhelming. From awkward dates to learning about one another, it's an endeavor that keeps us on our toes. When we think about dating everyday people, we generally know what to expect. However, dating celebrities has us thinking about the glitz and glam of it. We think of the extravagant dates, the extraordinary gifts, and the fame we'll suddenly gain. We like to imagine the paparazzi photos that might be taken and even the rumors that might be started. It's a sinfully exciting fantasy that we all like to delve in.
Dating royalty, however? Well, that's a completely different story. That's the fantasy of one day becoming a prince or princess-or becoming a duchess like we watched Kate Middleton do. The life of royals is fun and far out of our reach, but we still enjoy following their lives. When royalty and celebrity combine though, we know we're in for a real treat. We can't fantasize about it so we learn to live vicariously through the stars who have gone out and done just that. The celebrity-royalty couples we've come to know are scrumptious, scandalous and downright entertaining to follow!
18 Olivia Wilde And The Italian Royal
Olivia Wilde is a widely known actress with a slew of movie and TV genres under her belt. From House to The OC, Tron: Legacy to Drinking Buddies, she's continuously surprising us with what's coming up next in her life.
It's enough for us to really believe that she's down for whatever might happen. Therefore when Marie Claire reported she started dating an Italian prince, we shouldn't have been surprised. For a period of time, Olivia dated-and was even married to-Tao Ruspoli who is a part of an old Italian royalty line.
Despite his royal status, Tao has an infinite love for the arts in many forms, so we can see how the two of them ended up together. Still, it obviously wasn't for her as Wilde has moved on from Italian royalty and is instead staying within the Hollywood celebrity ring.
17 Jamie Lee Curtis And The British Baron
Jamie Lee Curtis is famously known for her roles in the movies Halloween, Freaky Friday and more. She's a Hollywood legacy child of two classically known actors-Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. It's almost as if in her own right, she's a Hollywood princess.
However-thanks to her husband-she's actually graduated to real life royalty! Christopher Guest-famously known for his role in Spinal Tap-is also British royalty, according to Screenrant! He's the fifth baron in Great Saling in the County of Essex, to be exact.
It's not like he's inheriting the throne anytime soon, but it definitely counts as royal blood. While we know we're never going to see Jamie with a crown on her head ruling over England, it's still fun to think that one day we could see the cult queen become a real queen!
16 Laura Harring And The German Count
The Miss USA pageant is the kind of pageant that sends a name down in history-and Laura Harring won that honor as the first Hispanic woman to ever win. She didn't stop there. She moved onward to an acting career-starring in shows Gossip Girl and NCIS: Los Angeles. As she was busy conquering many different parts of the entertainment world, Laura also happened to date and marry Carl-Eduard von Bismarc-Schönhausen.
Carl wasn't just an ordinary German man, according to Screenrant-he was a count and came from a very serious line of royalty. His great-great-grandfather was the Chancellor of the German Empire for over 20 years during the 1800's. That's quite the royal family to marry into! The marriage lasted only two years, but Laura is still known as a Countess today.
15 Portia De Rossi And The Distant Cousin
Portia De Rossi is known for her legendary romance with the ever-eclectic Ellen De Generes. They're quirky and always seem to be having fun. The love between them is genuine. We want to find ourselves a romance like that. While we know Ellen treats Portia like a queen on a daily basis-it turns out that Portia is Ellen's queen.
As it turns out, The Mirror Ellen is a cousin of Kate Middleton! That's what we said. Ellen is distantly related to the Duchess of Cambridge. While Kate has married into royalty, it still makes her and her relatives royalty. The sun, moon and stars would have to weirdly align for Ellen to ever become queen, but there's no denying her royal blood nowadays. This Queen of the LGBTQ community has truly upgraded her title!
14 Letizia Ortiz And The King Of Spain
While not American, Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano gained her rise to fame from her hard work as an anchor for CNN and as a journalist. She was well known, but her personal fairy tale gained her a real following-and quite the career upgrade as well. Letizia caught the eye of Felipe VI-the Prince of Spain. Their marriage made her a princess.
We imagine that the title comes with quite the responsibility, but her title change didn't end there. In 2014, King Juan Carlos renounced his title and stepped down from the throne, according to Screenrant. Doing so made Felipe the King of Spain. When he was crowned, so was Latizia. She gives us hope that maybe we'll catch the eye of a royal and become Queen, too-though we're not sure we want to rule an entire country.
13 Mike Comrie And The Disney Royal
Mike Comrie-while retired-is a well-known Canadian ice hockey player who played for 13 years and for many teams. In recent years, he also became associated with Disney star Hilary Duff. The two were married and even had a kid together-their son, Luca. What we bet Mike didn't know is that-because of his marriage to Hilary-their son is now a prince.
That's right! Hilary is royalty by British connection-two connections that is. According to CBS News, she is a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II and she's also a descendant of King Edward III from the 1300's. Talk about quite the family connection!
We also realized that that means-for a while-Comrie was married to someone who is practically a Disney princess and his son almost an adorable Disney prince.
12 Sophie Winkleman And The Prince Of Kent
Mutli-cultural actress Sophie Winkleman in known for her role in the British cult show Peep Show as well as for her repeating role in Two and a Half Men. The young actress is actively growing her career in Hollywood, but she has a secondary career that's been growing as well. In 2009, Sophie married Frederick Windsor-a financial analyst.
That's not his only title though. His full name is Lord Frederick Windsor, the son of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, according to The Telegraph. His British royalty ties him-and now Sophie-to Queen Elizabeth II. By marrying him, she became Lady Frederick Windsor. The title change hasn't slowed her Hollywood career down at all, but there's no doubt that one day her British royal family could change the course of her career.
11 Kit Harington And The Chieftain's Daughter
Winter may be passing, but a wedding is coming! When Game of Thrones stars Kit Harington and Rose Leslie announced they were getting married, we couldn't have been more excited about the union. It's the royal wedding that we have been waiting for-at least the one we thought we'd get because of their character roles.
However as it turns out, Rose is actually royalty-a real life royal, per Screenrant! As it turns out, Rose is a Scottish descendant of King Charles II. Her father is the Chieftain of the Clan Leslie. That makes her 100 percent Scottish royalty! It's the perfect plot twist as we're given the chance to witness their truly royal wedding. While the date hasn't been set yet due to filming, we're eagerly waiting.
10 Ethan Hawke And The Hollywood Princess
Star of the infamous movie Gattaca, Ethan Hawke has built himself quite the career in both film and literature. The esteemed actor has been tied to famous ladies like Karen Campbell, Julia Roberts, and Uma Thurman.
What we didn't know-and he probably didn't at the time either-is that for a short time he dated and was married to a British royal. His ex-wife Uma Thurman is actually related to British royalty, per E!. She's the 21st cousin to Edward I of England, but that still makes her royalty.
This kick-behind, bombshell of an actress with a royal history means that Hawke's children-Maya and Levon-are royalty as well. That means that Ethan's loving little prince and princess are actually deserving of that title in real life. How absolutely sweet is that!
9 A.J. Langer And The Earl Of Devon
A.J. Langer gained her start to acting on My So-Called Life and more recently appeared on Private Practice. Her commoner turned Hollywood star story captured our hearts as she made her way up from Columbus, Ohio. However, A.J. didn't let her rise to fame stop with Hollywood. No, she ended up hitting something a lot bigger and more widespread than that when she married Charles Courtenay in 2004.
Charles happens to be a part of a very important British royalty line-the Earls of Devon. The family line goes all the way back to the 1340's. Talk about a family history! After joining the family A.J. now has access to the family castle-the Powderham Castle, according to The Telegraph. We may not have ever heard of the castle, but we're still envious that this Countess spends real time inside one!
8 Kendra Spears And The Qajar Dynasty
Born in 1988, Kendra Spears was an absolutely lovely young lady who worked all the way up to being a supermodel. We know her for her work with Ford and her stunning photos on the cover of Vogue. Kendra's stint as a supermodel wasn't long and neither was her use of the name “Kendra Spears”.
Kendra met Prince Rahim of the Qajar Dynasty-a dynasty in Iran. A foreign country, a stunning dynasty and a completely different world is what Kendra gained when she decided to marry the Prince.
She took a new name as Princess Salwa Aga Khan-a name that is quite the mouthful in our opinion, per the Huffington Post. Despite being a part of Iran, the lovely Princess Salwa now spends her days as a mom to two children in Geneva, Switzerland. What a life upgrade!
7 Casper Van Dien And The Princess Of Yugoslavia
Sci-fi nerds everywhere know who Casper Van Dien is. He's known for his legendary role in Starship Troopers as Johnny Rico. Sci-fi cult followings everywhere adore him, but we love that he's found himself a happily ever after story. Casper is happily in his second marriage to a woman named Catherine Oxenberg.
While their marriage is adorable, we can't get over the fact that Catherine's mother is actually the Princess of Yugoslavia-Elizabeth of the Karadordevic dynasty. The dynasty goes back over 200 years.
That's right. Casper married the daughter of a princess. The family comes with strong royal titles and quite a bit of land under their belt. The legendary cult icon went from killing bugs in a classic to rubbing elbows with royalty. We're quite envious of that transition. Unfortunately, this dynasty didn't have the best destiny. The pair split up in 2015, per the Daily Mail.
6 Gwyneth Paltrow And The Prince Of Spain
Gwyneth Paltrow has made a name for herself from her time in the Marvel Universe, for her company GOOP and for so much more. Her talents and interests are far-spread, so it's only natural that her dating interests would be the same. Paltrow has a tendency for leaving her dating life a guessing game for us, so when her name was linked in an Andrew Morton book, per The Local, with Felipe VI-the Prince of Spain-we went wild. We couldn't help ourselves.
Much wasn't offered to us when we found out-except that the claim came around the time Paltrow met her future ex-husband. While she denied the claim, there's a lot going into the rumor being true as well. Either way, we like to wonder what it would've been like if Gwyneth was associated with Felipe when he became king.
5 Rob Lowe And The Princess of Monaco
Recently famous for his part in Parks and Recreation, Rob Lowe has been in the eyes of the public for many years. From his partying antics to his talented acting endeavors, he's been a favorite of ours for a while now. When he released his autobiography, we discovered that Rob had a fun little fling with Stephanie Marie Elisabeth Grimaldi, according to E!. She also happened to be the Princess of Monaco.
The two became the definition of a whirlwind romance as he moved into her apartment the day after they met. Yes, we said that right. They were together very briefly-enjoying drinks, nocturnal activities and clubbing. It obviously didn't last long, but Rob received the royal treatment for the time he did spend with the lively princess. We can't imagine what it'd be like to party with a princess.
4 Emma McQuiston And The British Aristocrat
While Meghan Markle is gaining fame for her fairy tale romance with Prince Harry, she isn't the first African woman to marry a British gentleman. Emma McQuiston made her root as a model, food blogger and chef while her father is an oil tycoon in Nigeria. This mutli-talented woman dated and eventually married Ceawlin Thynn-don't ask us how to pronounce his name.
However, her British aristocrat is the son of Alexander Thynn-the seventh Marquess of Bath. It's quite the lengthy title, but not as crazy as the one Emma gained when she married him. Her marriage gained her the title as the Vicountess of Weymouth, according to ABC News. Emma stands to make history as the first dark skinned lady to become Marchioness once her father-in-law passes. It's caused family tension, but we hear that her husband valiantly defends his wife's honor.
3 Ellie Goulding And The Second Prince
When Prince William and Kate Middleton got married, it was a royal affair that all would remember. To add to the impressive event, Ellie Goulding was brought in to sing for the royal couple. It was there that Ellie met William's brother, Prince Harry. The devilishly handsome prince had a reputation for loving the ladies and loving to party.
The fiery relationship caught our attention and we lived vicariously through them as we waited to see if something more would come of the relationship. We even teasingly waited to see if Ellie would talk about future royal babies! However, the whirlwind romance died as quickly as a gust of wind and the two went their separate ways. We even hear that Ellie has been invited to Harry's pending nuptials, per Express. We imagine that's got to be a tad bit awkward!
2 Jessica Chastain And The Italian Noble
Academy Award nomination is quite the notch under one's belt and Jessica Chastain has two-one for Zero Dark Thirty and The Help. We love her incredible acting skills, but we love her personal love story even more. For five years, Jessica dated Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo before they finally got hitched. While he has great fashion tastes due to his executive position at the highly exclusive fashion company Moncler, Gian has deep roots in Italy.
In fact, Screenrant reports his roots go back all the way to tenth century Italian nobility. That's quite the family history! Gian even owns a fantastic villa and estate that produces an exclusive brand of prosecco. It sounds like a great place for a retreat between acting gigs. Their sweet relationship is the perfect blend of stunning acting skills and Italian roots that Bankratewe definitely envy.
1 Meghan Markle And The Prince of England
Her face has been all over the gossip magazines, news pages and more. Meghan Markle-famed TV actress from Suits and more-stole the heart of the esteemed Prince of England after being set up on a blind date with him. A whirlwind romance with the public anxiously watching led to the engagement of the year in 2017.
Since then, we've been waiting with bated breath to watch the Prince of England marry his princess. Her time in front of the camera is likely over as she and Harry-once they are married-are third in line to the throne. Harry's father and older brother would have to pass up the title first, but that means there's still a chance she may be queen. Now will we call her Queen Rachel-her real first name according to The Sun-or Queen Meghan?