Stars who found love with regular people

You might know his name now, but eight years ago Kevin Federline was an unknown high school drop-out and backup dancer when he met pop star Britney Spears in early 2004, and they jumped right on the relationship fast track. The couple married after just three months of dating, had their first son, Sean Preston, less than 12 months later, had their second child, another son named Jayden, a year after that, and announced they were divorcing after just two years of marriage. Of course, the two managed to squeeze in a reality show along the way!

Sure he’s currently dating former pro wrestler Stacy Kiebler and was with Italian actress Elisabetta Canalis, but George Clooney doesn’t require his girlfriends to be famous, just beautiful! Case in point: The A-lister dated Las Vegas cocktail waitress Sarah Larsen from 2007 to 2008. Though Larsen — who once appeared on an episode of “Fear Factor” — quit her waitressing job while they were dating to start modeling, dating the Cloonster never led to her big break.
After romances with big-name actors Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, and Ryan Reynolds, in September Scarlett Johansson moved on to an everyman: NYC advertising executive Nate Naylor. Although there is very little we know about him, Johansson’s tall beau has clearly charmed more than just the actress. Naylor “is the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen in person,” a colleague tells People.
Lady Gaga’s 2008 debut album, The Fame, was largely inspired by her failed relationship with NYC bartender Luc Carl, whom she had been with since 2005. Soon after her mega success, the wild pair rekindled the flame and had an on-again, off-again “Bad Romance” until it ended for good in 2011. Oddly enough, Gaga met her current boyfriend, “The Vampire Diaries” actor Taylor Kinney, when he starred in her video for “You and I” — a song she wrote about Carl.
A movie star walks into a bar … and out with his future wife? Single mom Luciana Bozan Barroso was working as a bartender in 2003 in Miami, where Matt Damon was shooting the comedy “Stuck on You,” when the two serendipitously met. “One night in the middle of the shoot, the crew, a couple guys said ‘We’re going to get a beer somewhere.’ I said, ‘I’m not really into it.’ They said, ‘Come on,’ and kind of dragged me along,” Matt recalled on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” last year. “We ended up at a bar where my wife was the bartender. I literally saw her across a crowded room, literally, and eight years and four kids later, that’s my life. I don’t know how else our paths would’ve crossed if that didn’t happen. If all those things didn’t happen.”
Rob Camilletti became the world’s best-known bagel baker when the then-22-year-old began dating Cher, who was 18 years his senior, in 1986. Dubbed “Bagel Boy” by the press, Camilletti — who was a struggling actor working part-time in a bagel shop when he met his iconic girlfriend — was by Cher’s side for three years (as well as in her “I Found Someone” video), and made headlines after destroying the cameras of some paparazzi who were stalking Cher’s home in 1989. A short time later, the couple broke up, though some say Cher has referred to him as her “true love.” Camilletti picked up a few minor movie and TV roles in the early ’90s, but, alas, never made it as an actor despite all the publicity.
After splitting from her husband, A&R exec Jordan Bratman in 2010, Christina Aguilera rebounded with another non-Hollywood type: Matt Rutler, a production assistant on her movie, “Burlesque.” “The Voice” coach’s new beau shares her love of partying. Last March, the two were arrested — he for DUI, she for public intoxication — after a wild night out in West Hollywood.
Simon Cowell didn’t have to look far for love when he fell for “American Idol” makeup artist Mezhgan Hussainy in 2009. The next year, the two were engaged, although Cowell, in typical fashion, joked that it would be “10 years” before he actually walked down the aisle. Now, it could be longer: Hussainy stopped wearing her engagement ring last September and it was reported in January that the two were on a break from each other.
Elizabeth Taylor met her eighth and final husband, construction worker Larry Fortensky, in 1988 when the two were both in treatment at Betty Ford. Their vices? Pills for her; beer for him. Although he lived with the screen legend in her Beverly Hills mansion, the 20-years-younger Fortensky insisted on keeping his day job. But after Taylor made him quit in order to travel with her, the marriage went south, and in 1996 she filed for divorce. Still, the two remained close and she sent him $1,000 a month until her 2011 death. Taylor even left Fortensky $1 million in her will.
We don’t know what most federal air marshals look like, since they’re undercover, but we’d have never imagined they look like Jade Duell, the natural beauty who had actor Owen Wilson’s baby in early 2011. So where’d the couple meet? In the first-class cabin of a flight from L.A. to Washington, D.C., an incident some have criticized, since air marshals are supposed to be, you know, protecting passengers from terrorism, not flirting with the celebrities sitting next to them. After keeping the relationship under wraps until days before son Robert was born, the couple broke up just a few months later.
Former Fly Girl Jennifer Lopez has a thing for her backup dancers. After marrying one — her second husband, Cris Judd — she’s now dating another from her most recent tour, Casper Smart, following her split from third husband Marc Anthony. The twosome have been inseparable since the fall, and Lopez has already introduced her beau to her kids, 4-year-old twins Max and Emme.
Julia Roberts’ long list of famous relationships includes Dylan McDermott, Kiefer Sutherland, Benjamin Bratt, and of course, country crooner Lyle Lovett, whom she married and divorced within two years. She finally stumbled into long-term love when she fell for cameraman Danny Moder while shooting “The Mexican” in 2000. Though Roberts was still dating Bratt at the time and Moder was actually married, the two dumped their significant others and tied the knot in July 2002. Nearly a decade later, the couple is still going strong and have three children together.
“Felicity” star Keri Russell has been in show business since she was a teenager, but the now-35-year-old found her true love far outside the industry when friends introduced her to contractor Shane Deary. The two married on Valentine’s Day 2007, when Russell was five months pregnant. They’re now raising two little ones, 4-and-a-half-year-old son River and 6-week-old daughter Willa, in their Brooklyn brownstone (which, conveniently, Deary renovated).
That was fast! After falling for Canadian real estate agent Kyla Weber in 2008, funny guy Vince Vaughn proposed to her the following Valentine’s Day. Vince and Kyla married two years ago and are now parents to 14-month-old daughter Locklyn. “I met the best girl in the world,” Vaughn said on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” last year. “It gives you such a great purpose in your life.”
As one-third of the enormously popular singing group, The Jonas Brothers, Kevin Jonas could have had anyone — but his heart belongs to New Jersey-based hairdresser Danielle Deleasa. The two met in 2007 while both were on vacation in the Bahamas, and two years later they married in a fairytale wedding at a castle on Long Island, New York. Jonas has largely stayed out of the limelight as his band is on hiatus and he and Deleasa enjoy married life. Is a Jonas baby on the horizon? “Not right now for us, but it will happen in the future,” he told People last year.