When you work with someone every day, relationships start to build. I'm great friends with a lot of the people I work with, and I can't imagine how awkward it would be if any of us had a falling out.
For people on TV shows, that tension is only heightened if they portray a couple on screen. A lot of actors and actresses who date on their show will often date, or at least have a fling, off screen. The problem is, sometimes those flings don't end well, and it affects the way the show goes on.
There are quite a few documented stories of celeb couples who dated off screen, and caused a lot of problems for their on-screen roles.
1. Joshua Jackson and Katie Holmes
Before she got married to Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes dated her Dawson's Creek co-star Joshua Jackson. Their characters ended up dating on the show, but that storyline happened after the couple broke up in real life. Holmes later said that part of the reason the chemistry between their characters wasn't always present, was because of the tension between them personally.
"I guess if Pacey [Jackson's character] and Joey [Holmes's character] dated the first season, there would be more of a clear indication of what's going on between us," Holmes said. "But it's just so far from that."
2. Kaley Cuoco and Johnny Galecki
Their characters may be married now on The Big Bang Theory, but their off-screen relationship was a little more rocky, and it allegedly lead to a breakup on the show! Galecki revealed that he and Cuoco had dated for about two years, but chose to hide it so that it didn't affect the way the show played out.
"I just don't like to speak about it," Galecki later said of their romance. "And not because I'm trying to be enigmatic; I just worry that it will conflict with people's acceptance of Leonard and Penny.... I get the curiosity, but I don't want to distract from the story."
But Cuoco didn't agree with the secrecy, and it eventually led to the breakup.
"It was such a huge part of my life and no one knew about it," she said. "It was a wonderful relationship, but we never spoke a word about it and never went anywhere together. Everyone was always asking, and we deny-deny-denied. And I'm like, 'Why am I denying this person that I love?'"
After Leonard and Penny broke up on the show, it was speculated that it was due to Galecki and Cuoco ending their own romance. This have never been confirmed, but it would absolutely make sense.
3. Milo Ventimiglia and Alexis Bledel
The Gilmore Girls fan favorites made headlines when Bledel said they had talked about marriage.
"I think everybody who has been dating for more than a couple of years probably talks about it at some point," she said. "It's a fun thing for us to talk about, but that's it."
But the couple broke up in 2006, which coincidentally was the same time that Ventimiglia's character left the show. It was largely speculated that the reason for his split was due to the real-life break up. However, Ventimiglia had nothing but nice things to say about Bledel.
"She's a good person," he said in an interview. "I don't think it's any more difficult to date in Hollywood than in any other way of life, or in any other industry. Relationships are relationships, and they're tough. You just have to want to work on them."
4. Blake Lively and Penn Badgley
Lively and Badgley dated while they were starring on Gossip Girl, and it more or less mirrored their on-screen romance. After they broke up, they still managed to work together on set, although Badgley seemed a little annoyed that he still had to kiss his co-star.
"I'd say best [kiss]..." he mused. "I'll say it was Blake, because we actually had a relationship at the time."
As for worst kiss?
"Maybe Blake after we broke up."
Badgley described their relationship as an "endurance test" and a learning experience.
"We were very much caught up in the show, which itself was a six-year endurance test. Our relationship was a part of that and helped us through it," Badgley explained. "I mean, like anything valuable, it was good and it was bad and it was a learning experience."
5. Chad Michael Murray and Sophia Bush
Murray and Bush got married just over a year after they met on the set of One Tree Hill, but Murray was unable to keep it in his pants, and cheated on his new wife with Paris Hilton.
The couple divorced just five months after they got married, but still had to work together on the show for four more seasons.
Murray and Bush had noticeably fewer scenes together, and a romance between their characters that seemed to be going hot and heavy quickly ended. Later, Bush would go on to say that her job was more important than any feud.
"We were two stupid kids who had no business being in a relationship in the first place," Bush admitted years later.
"To all the other costars who've worked it out, more power to you. My mother once said to me that if you don't have anything nice to say, not to say anything at all.
At the end of the day, we're grown-ups, and I actually think it's interesting that when people split in a way that's unpleasant, they usually just go on quite literally hating each other - or the person in my situation hates the other person, whatever - but when you have to work with somebody for another half a decade, you kind of have to deal with it. Because for me, at the end of the day, my job is my priority."
6. Jesse Spencer and Jennifer Morrison
Spencer and Morrison met on the set of House and started dating in secret, in hopes of avoiding any major drama on set. After about four months, though, they slowly started telling their cast mates about their romance, as people grew suspicious.
"It's nice to have your best friend with me every day," Morrison said at the time. "He not only gets it, he's part of it."
The couple began dating on-screen as well, and it seemed like an amazing way art imitated life. Morrison and Spencer got engaged, as did their characters on the show. Only one of them lasted, though.
Less than a year after their engagement, Spencer and Morrison called it quits. Their characters didn't, though. They got married on-screen, and not long after that, Morrison left the show. Tensions on set had started to rise, so the actress felt like it was time to go.
I don't really blame her. Having to pretend to be married to your ex-fiancee? That can't be easy.
7. Sebastian Stan and Leighton Meester
The Gossip Girl co-stars clearly learned nothing from their fellow cast members, and found themselves in a fast-paced romance. They quickly became a couple after meeting on set, as did their characters. It seemed like they were having a ton of fun playing love interests with their real life partners, but it quickly turned sour. Almost immediately after the couple broke up in real life, so did their characters on the the show.
Meester would later go on to release a song called "Heartstrings," which she said was inspired by the breakup.
"It used to be about some stupid breakup that I had when I was 25 or earlier," she confessed. "But it was stupid, and I was like, 'I have to write a song about this!' Now, it really does have more meaning. At the time it was like,' Screw you, I don't care about you anymore, and it's not going to happen! Joker.'"
8. David Annable and Emily VanCamp
This situation was a little different, but more or less ended in the same way. While VanCamp and Annable starred on Brothers & Sisters (as, you guessed it, brothers and sisters,) they began an off-screen romance that fans of the show loved.
Their chemistry was so strong on and off the screen, the writers wrote a paternity scandal into the show so the couple could be together there as well.
However, the relationship between VanCamp and Annable didn't last, and neither did their on-screen incestuous-but-not relationship.
