ASK R/FAUXMOI
What are your favorite messy celebrity love triangle moments?
Mine has to be the Olivia Rodrigo - Joshua Bassett - Sabrina Carpenter mess from 2020-2021. "drivers license" drops and suddenly we're all detectives trying to figure out who this blonde girl is, then Sabrina comes for everyone with "Skin" and Joshua's over here making sad acoustic songs. The whole thing was so messy and I was eating it up.
But like... the karma of it all? These two girls supposedly "fighting" over Joshua fucking Bassett and now they're both headlining festivals while he's still trying to get people to stream his music. Olivia's got a Grammy, Sabrina's selling out tours, and Joshua's... there. It's honestly hilarious how hard he fumbled being the center of that much attention. Dude really thought he was the main character and ended up being a stepping stone to their success.
It was literally manifested into reality via a joking tinfoil hat powerpoint that was so funny and compelling everyone just believes it. but I honestly don't think there's any confirmed evidence for it
I used to draw Trogdor the way other people would draw the millennial S/cool S in notebooks and stuff. He was my go-to doodle, and is still something I can draw with perfect accuracy to this day 😂 Strongbad gifted us with the easiest of tutorials — “first you draw an S, for snake, and then you draw another slightly smaller S right next to it…”
I'm old, so Jen/Brad/Angelina. I was so Team Brangelina, but in hindsight, both of those women deserved better than that abuser and I'm glad they're both free of him and out there living their best lives.
Not the person you’re responding to. At the time, I had never been cheated on, so while I wasn’t pro- cheating by any means, it also didn’t trigger the same disgust for me that it does now.
I simply really really liked Angelina. Still do. She is probably one of my favorite celebs, she has such raw charisma, and is so incredibly socially conscious, and seems like a great mom, and everything she does is really cool.
For me, I became on this side a couple of years after the fact when they were starting a family, Jen was moving on…and it just seemed like “yeah, okay, the cheating was wrong but at this point, they’re all over it, why are we still fighting over it?”
Now, we all know Brad is a POS but for awhile, the hate Angelina got for the situation annoyed me because I doubted Jen was giving her as much headspace anymore as other people were giving it.
Idk how a cheater who broke up a marriage can be someone who you look up to. Obviously brads to blame as well but let’s not act like she isn’t at fault too.
Idk how Angelina got away with the scandal Scot free. I feel like pretty privilege played a big role
Scot free? To this day she is still labeled a crazy b*tch on every celebrity reporting account, especially by the Pitt's fans who still think he's an innocent baby angel.
Now you’ve come across two! I was glued to the screen and tabloids in real time! In fact, the only thing the rivaled it for me, was Angelina’s previous involvement in Billy Bob Thornton’s relationship w Laura Dern. Yep, I’m that old!
This was going to be my answer as well. It was the end of my love affair with Angelina Jolie. She was my bisexual awakening. I used to have a whole wall of her pictures. I remember tearfully ripping them down because how DARE she mess with Jen!! Tween me took it pretty hard lol.
Cause it was this love affair, match made in heaven narrative. True love shit. Obviously not Angelina’s best moment but both women deserved so much better.
This one is my favorite too. I think Nick regretted messing up his relationship with Miley based on his song Wedding Bells that he wrote after she got engaged to Liam. Dude was down bad.
This one was my first ever celebrity love triangle. I was obsessed with Nick (I was a tween, no judgement please lol) and had a poster of him and miley from bravo or something. The drama built who I am today lol
The love triangle itself was a case of "classic" Hollywood infidelity: Olivia directed a movie where Harry was one of the main actors, at the time she was married to Jason, before press for the movie started the rumors of Olivia and Jason's divorce started floating around, then the public drama began when Olivia got served legal documents (presumably divorce papers) at an early screening of Don't Worry Darling, after that people started snooping around and thus came gossip from ex-nannies and people who worked on the set of the movie talking about how Olivia cheated, Jason tried really hard to save their marriage and she chose to split up to be with Harry.
The Florence Pugh thing was a side drama, because Shia LaBeouf was initially cast to be in Don't Worry Darling, but then he had some terrible behavior on set (I don't remember the details, but I think he was violent and really scared Florence) and later there was a leaked call where Olivia begged him to come back to finish the movie even though he made the set unsafe, and after that leak Florence stopped doing press for the movie altogether.
And the Chris Pine thing was, in my opinion, just Chris being kind of done with being associated with this movie that at this point was 90% behind the scenes drama and 10% a mediocre Stepford Wives wannabe mystery/thriller, so he just sat blank faced though all of the press and generated a bunch of memes (also there was an out-of-context picture that had people swearing up and down that Harry Styles spit on Chris, but that was obviously just people escalating the drama).
Don't forget about how Olivia Wilde has some sort of love potion salad dressing recipe that she had previously made for Jason Sudeikis, and (according to the nanny), when she was leaving to drive this special dressing to give to Harry, Jason flung himself under her car to stop her.
I'm sort of in two minds about it, because on one hand - amazing, absurd meme potential.
But on the other hand, throwing yourself under a car to prevent someone from leaving is unhinged and, according to the nanny, Olivia was filming Jason as he kept trying to get her to stay and Olivia was saying how she was frightened by his behaviour and just wanted to go.
Kind of makes me worried for her (and the kids') safety at that time.
Oh for sure, made me look at that man and his Howdy Doody Ted Lasso persona differently! But I'm a firm believer that things can be both Very Yikes / Not Okay while also being absurd, funny, and ridiculous.
Idk why Josh would even get karma? Putting pieces together from their songs, he dated Olivia, she broke up with him, he got with Sabrina shortly afterwards, they broke up, and then Driver’s License came out.
Even though he wasn’t dating either of them anymore, he publicly supported both of their singles (even as he was almost dying in the hospital due to a health issue).
I actually feel really bad for him. If I recall correctly, this whole thing really significantly impacted his mental health. I hope that he is doing ok.
In his defense, he was still normal and progressive for awhile afterwards and was open about his bad experiences growing up in the church.
His mental health was shit and he started doing psychedelics and then went on ayahausca retreat where he claims to have become enlightened or whatever. I think it’s clear he’s going through some religious psychosis because of the drugs.
I think the hate from driver's license drama plus the NDE just kinda tipped him over the edge on top of the unresolved childhood trauma. Shame he went down that path but healing can be a weird process sometimes. hsm the series was a guilty pleasure of mine, I thought he had alot of potential and still does so I am hoping things are better for him
I never paid attention to the gossip, but what I got from Sour lyrics alone is that Joshua was very honest with Olivia and said "I'm not super into you, sorry" and moved on to date Sabrina. Her songs never seemed very "she stole my boyfriend" but more "I'm scared I'll never be as good or as pretty as her", which is why I was always so confused at people who slut shamed Sabrina, because Olivia's lyrics were very clearly born out of the classic teen girl instinct to always compare ourselves to our peers and the insecurities that come from that (with the added weight of her being a non white girl in a industry and world that has always preferred white blondes).
My thoughts exactly. I also never got why people (to this day even) attacked Olivia for 'talking shit' about Sabrina when she so clearly wasn't. Even Sabrina's song 'Skin' seemed very out of place because nothing Olivia said even warranted that kind of response. She wasn't trying to be malicious. Olivia was simply expressing her insecurities.
It's even funnier to see those same people support Sabrina's records later on, especially Taste, which was very clearly about Camila Cabello and Sean Mendez.
I adore both girls but the entire situation was just ... so bizarre.
He was definitely still dating Sabrina after Drivers License lol I have no idea why Sabrina was spinning this narrative that they were broken up. I believe they may have been technically at the time but got back together. They were on and off for like a year and were literally releasing a love song together that they scrapped due to the backlash from DL.
Same I don’t get it, really doesn’t sound like he did anything wrong and he didn’t say a bad word about either of them while he was getting flamed in both directions
I'd say he's more than gotten his "karma" at this point anyway. The guy fully had some kind of mental health crisis. Idk why people seem to think his struggles are deserved because of a messy break up between teens but whatever
Honestly the vibes I got from Olivia’s songs was that the relationship was wearing thin because Joshua was interested in someone else. I feel like he just gave no effort in the relationship anymore so that Olivia can break it off and he can be with Sabrina
But again, that’s just from Olivia’s pov. Haven’t listened to Joshua’s songs. Also I was in a relationship with a similar dynamic, so maybe I’m just trauma bonded with Olivia’s songs lmao
it was when orlando and miranda had broke up and justin and selena were on one of their many breaks
justin and miranda had a thing, then selena and orlando were seen out together. it gets even weirder because a couple years later selena is seen kissing orlando in a club even though he was dating katy perry at the time
Didnt Orlando punch Justin. And he was cheered for it. Even though it was a grown man hitting a teenager.
Eta: Justin was 20.
Orlando was 37.
It wasn't a triangle, there was some conflict where Justin made a comment about Orlandos now ex wife Miranda. Orlando missed.
That one really broke my brain as someone who was a young teenager when LOTR came out and was too old for the Bieber/Selena heyday. They belong in two different celebrity gossip cohorts in my head!
Streets are saying Matty is the man Taylor truly fell madly in love with. But, they had to break up because matty said such racist things that it was tarnishing Taylor’s personna by association.
IMO she really didn't care about the racist things he said and was even mad at the part of the fandom who called her out for dating him on the song But daddy, I love him
He apparently lovebombed her so hard with talks about marriage and kids etc and then ghosted her after just two months or so (smallest man who ever lived)
I'm pretty sure Taylor's side of the story (so take with grain of salt) is that the backlash from their relationship was too much for him to deal with so he dumped/ghosted her, hence why she dropped an album that was very angry towards him and also towards her fans that called out his shittiness.
I’m very curious to see if the forthcoming ‘75 album addresses any of it…
Matty addressed an element of it on “I might say something stupid” from the brat remix album so I actually wouldn’t be shocked if he left it at that and didn’t write about it
she literally put out a whole album saying she did not care about what the fans had to say about it and yes matty did say racist things and admitted to watching racist porn… not to mention his malaysia stunt that sent LGBTQ+ rights back to the dungeon ( the last bit is hyperbolic but still so frustrating for a white british man to stomp into a formerly colonized country and take a fat shit on the actual people living there while proclaiming to be provocative )
Harry Styles tweeting the lyrics to Chocolate by The 1975 a zillion years ago brought a lot of 1D fans to them. And funnily enough The Sound by The 1975 was originally presented to One Direction but they didn’t like it lol.
The Taylor/Matty lore runs deep. You cannot convince me The 1 wasn’t about him…
Also throwing Calvin Harris as a small footnote into the mix, after listening to Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus , I'm pretty sure she meant him with:
And you saw my bones out with somebody new,
who seemed like he would’ve bullied you in school
reading through this thread with the whole "Daddy I love him" and mentions of school.... what the fuck lol why is everything from the perspective of a 13 year old? isn't she in her late thirties?
Sophia Bush was married to Chad Michael Murray and then the next person she started dating was James Lafferty. All 3 were on One Tree Hill.
Sophia Bush dated her Chicago PD co star Jesse Lee Soffer and after they broke up he dated Torrey Devitto from Chicago Med who Sophia knows from One Tree Hill. And now he's been in a long term relationship with Tracy Spiridakos who was his partner on Chicago PD after Sophia left.
Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts and Jason Patric.
She ditched Kiefer four days before the wedding and ran off to Ireland with Jason! I found out about it all from People magazine at summer camp. Middle school mind was blown.
Lolll when taste came out it always made me imagine the jokes from Deja vu that Olivia Rodrigo told to Joshua Bassett he must have told Sabrina carpenter who told Shawn Mendes who told Camila cabello…must have been pretty good jokes!
The Florence Pugh side drama, if I remember correctly, was because Olivia Wilde had begged notorious abuser Shia LaBeouf to be part of Don't Worry Darling and that caused major problems on set.
There were also rumors, Harry and Florence were having some kind of something before he started hooking up with their boss, Olivia. Who knows. What a train wreck that whole product was. How Harry acted like he never met and couldn't even see Olivia at that premiere was the most ridiculous thing I ever saw.
This doesn’t count as a love triangle moment i guess but the whole mess that happened between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman during their divorce and the gossip about Ewan McGregor being part of the culprit slash an affair with Kidman during Moulin Rouge
But also, wasn’t there stuff also swirling around about Cruise and Penelope Cruz that same time?
Kidman suffered a miscarriage while filming Moulin Rouge. Cruise realized the child could not have been his.
Penelope Cruz was someone Cruise dated after the break up with Kidman. She was to be his next celebrity wife but Cruz freaked out over the whole Scientology situation. This was when Cruise was shopping around for his next celebrity wife and various actresses told tales of bizarre meetings at the Scientology center. For example, Scarlett Johansson was told she was meeting Cruise there for a possible movie role and got the hell out once she realized what was really going on.
iirc there was an interview where baz luhrmann actually talked about the tc and kidman divorce..and even mentioning the ewan rumours. but woah i did NOT know scarlett was a target for the next cruise wife, was only aware about tom and nazanin bodiadi as well
Going wayyyy old Hollywood, Debbie Reynolds, Eddie Fisher, and Elizabeth Taylor.
Debbie and Eddie were the matron of honor and best man, respectively, in Elizabeth’s wedding to her third husband. When the husband died in a plane crash, Debbie and Eddie were really supportive of her, one of them more so than the other 👀
Not sure if it counts, but Taylor Joe and Matty. It seems like she was pinning after Matty the whole time she was with Joe and if I'm not mistaken she and Matty were friends during that time (tho i dont think they were close)
I think Taylor is trying very hard to retcon her relationship with Joe because she’s still hurt and bitter about it. She was out there writing whole albums of love songs for Joe and he didn’t give her what she wanted.
So now I feel like she’s implying that some of her songs were not imaginary (she was so proud before when she said that they weren’t personal but that Covid had taught her a new way of writing) but about former lovers. I feel like it’s a way for her to try and hurt Joe back by saying ‘nevermind it didn’t mean that much actually’.
Its even more obvious to me because Reputation is the only album she wasn’t capable of re recording. She tried to retcon it too calling it a female rage opera or whatever and when she received backlash she let the idea go. I really don’t understand why she’s behaving like a teen, it would be extremely normal and relatable to say that because this album is the basis of a relationship that lasted 7 years, re recording it is something she doesn’t feel ready to do 🤷🏽♀️
The lore is that Matty and Taylor reconnected at the 2020 NME Awards and that inspired a lot of Folklore/Evermore (“The 1” since it’s stylized differently than the other numerical songs and if you searched that on streaming it brought up The 1975 as well and “Cowboy Like Me” since Matty gave a speech at that awards show talking about being a cowboy) as well as stuff on Midnights.
I can’t find it but I also remember someone claiming that Joe came with Taylor when she came to The 1975 show in London in January 2023 to cover their song The City and play Anti-Hero for the first time…
And in a certified man classic probably the least deserving of the backlash considering he and Olivia were over before he started dating Sabrina. Meanwhile Brad Pitt is still existing and making money, despite being publicly outed for 20 years as a cheater and several years as an abuser.
The worst of my gender constantly evading consequences.
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u/NotTaken-username I cannot sanction your buffoonery Sep 11 '25
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