Share this story

FOX NEWS

If you or someone you know is having thoughts

E NEWS

Watch: Liza Koshy Apologizes for Past Racist Videos With

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED

The Seattle Mariners’ No. 1 prospect entering the 2026

Christopher McDonald Says Geena Davis Left Him for Jeff Goldblum

Watch: Geena Davis Looks Back on the Legacy of ‘Thelma & Louise’ (Exclusive)

Christopher McDonald has no problem being happy for ex GeenaDavis.

The Happy Gilmore star got candid about the end of his engagement to the League of Their Own actress after she left him for Jeff Goldblum on the set of their 1985 film Transylvania 6-5000.

“The inside story is Geena Davis and I were engaged to be married for about five weeks, and she fell in love with Jeff Goldblum doing her first movie over there in Europe,” McDonald shared during an Aug. 22 retrospective with the SAG-AFTRA Foundation. “And I don’t blame him. She’s stunningly beautiful and everything like that, but you know what happens on sets, things happen, but I was broken.”

As McDonald, 71, recalled, he was doing Hamlet at the time and had another three weeks before he was set to join Davis, who was also costarring alongside Carol Kane and Ed Begley Jr.

“I got the bad news from Ed Begley,” McDonald revealed, “did me that solid.”

read

Jeff Goldblum Makes Rare Public Appearance With His 2 Kids

And while he was “really, really devastated” at the time, he and Davis, now 70, were able to put the difficulty behind them when he starred as her husband in 1991’s Thelma & Louise. After director RidleyScott shared the news of McDonald’s casting with Davis, the two met up for lunch and “hugged it out.”

“We had a really lovely afternoon and then we did what I think is probably the most ironic thing in the world: Let’s do wedding pictures and put them around the house for the set decorators,” he said. “We did all that, it turned out great and we’re dear friends now.”

McDonald went on to marry actress LupeGidley in 1992, and the pair share four children, while Davis and Goldblum married in 1987, but divorced in 1990. She was married to filmmaker Renny Harlin from 1993 to 1998 and plastic surgeon Reza Jarrahy from 2001 to 2021, with whom she shares three children. As for Goldblum, he married Emilie Livingston in 2014 and the couple are parents to two children.

E! News has reached out to reps for Davis and Goldblum for comment but has not heard back.

However, Davis previously admitted that the beginning of her romance with Goldblum overlapped with her and McDonald’s engagement.

Barry King/WireImage

“When I left for the movie, I was living with-and engaged to—one of the most wonderful men I’ve ever known, the actor Christopher McDonald. He was and is a truly beautiful person,” she wrote in her 2022 memoir Dying of Politeness. “And I broke his heart to be with Jeff, I’m ashamed to say. He didn’t deserve that at all, and this dear man eventually forgave me, for which I will always be grateful.”

According to Davis, she actually recommended McDonald for the role in Thelma & Louise, as she knew he would be fantastic in it.

“Chris is an incredibly talented actor, and one of the funniest people you’d ever meet,” she said, “(which was one of the reasons I’d fallen in love with him back when).”

For a look at more surprising celebrity couples, keep reading.

Jim Smeal/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

Brad Pitt and Juliette LewisThey 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?”

Jim Smeal/WireImage

Winona Ryder and Matt DamonIt 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.”

Jason Kempin/Getty Images

Cameron Diaz and Justin TimberlakeThere 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.”

Tom Kingston/WireImage

Alec Baldwin and Kristin DavisThe 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.”

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

David Moscow and Kerry WashingtonThe 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.

Patrick McMullan/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

Madonna and Tupac ShakurMadonna 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.”

Tim Mosenfelder/Corbis via Getty Images

Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese WitherspoonAfter 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.”

Image Press Agency/NurPhoto/Shutterstock; Charles Sykes/Bravo

Jesse Metcalfe and Scheana ShayThe 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.”

Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

Meg Tilly and Colin FirthBefore marrying Livia Giuggioli in 1997 (they separated in 2019), Firth had a five-year relationship with Tilly. Their son William Joseph Firth, born Sept. 20, 1990, is also an actor who appeared with his father in Bridget Jones’s Baby.

Jim Spellman/WireImage

Mandy Moore and Andy RoddickThis 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.”

Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

Dave Coulier and Alanis MorissetteYou oughta know by now that one of the most enduring mysteries in music history is who exactly inspired Morissette’s iconic 1995 single “Ironic”—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.

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Alanis Morissette and 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.

John Shearer/Getty Images

January Jones and Jason SudeikisYou 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 romanced Will Forte.

Steve Granitz/WireImage

Minnie Driver and Matt DamonThe 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.”

Shutterstock

Helen Mirren and Liam NeesonThe 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 Kravitz/FilmMagic

Jeff Goldblum and Laura DernFinding 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.

Variety/Penske Media via Getty Images

Gillian Anderson and Peter MorganThe 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.

SGranitz/WireImage

David Arquette and Ellen BarkinAccording to Arquette, the two dated while filming their 1995 Western Wild Bill.

Amy Sussman/Getty Images/Matt Petit/A.M.P.A.S. via Getty Images

Jeremy Sisto and Reese WitherspoonThe 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.”

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for CAA

Bethenny Frankel and Eric StonestreetE! 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.

Stephen Shugerman/Getty Images

Regina King and Malcolm-Jamal WarnerThe Southland alum and the actor, who played Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show, dated for several years before calling it quits in 2013.

Jim Smeal/WireImage

Kelly Preston and George ClooneyThe 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.

Barry King/WireImage

Val Kilmer and CherWhy, yes, she does believe in life after love. The late Top Gun star and the legendary diva dated back in the ’80s following her divorces from Sonny Bono and Gregg Allman.

Ron Galella/WireImage

Seal and Tyra BanksBefore he was Heidi Klum‘s ex, the “Kiss from a Rose” musician romanced a different supermodel.

J. Shearer/WireImage

Meagan Good and Joseph Gordon-LevittThe duo reportedly started dating after meeting on the set of the 2005 film Brick, but they only stayed together for six months.

Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

Joshua Jackson and Rosario DawsonThe Dawson’s Creek alum and the Josie and the Pussycats star dated for about a year back in 2002.

Ron Galella/WireImage

Chris O’Donnell and Reese WitherspoonThe NCIS: LA stud and America’s sweetheart dated way back in 1993, when 17-year-old Witherspoon first moved to Los Angeles.

Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

Sarah Jessica Parker and 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.”

M. Caulfield/WireImage for Bragman Nyman Cafarelli

Matthew Perry and Heather GrahamThe 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.

Michael Buckner/Getty Images for EW

Tom Hiddleston and Kat DenningsThe 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 timethe movie premiered the following year.

photos

View More Photos From They Dated? Surprising Star Couples

For the latest breaking news updates, click here to download the E! News App

THE BLAZE

The U.S. Supreme Court sided Monday with President Donald

NINTENDO LIFE

Are you ready? Image: SEGA Sega recently revealed it

NASA NEWS

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is encapsulated within