I Can’t Believe She’s Going Out With Him (Again)

During the making of the Godfather films, Diane Keaton and Al Pacino were a couple both onscreen and off. It seems that every time they made a new Godfather movie, Keaton and Pacino would hook up again – even after the 15-year gap between the making of Parts 2 and 3. But it was during that third hookup in 1989 that Pacino screwed up by screwing acting teacher Jan Tarrant and knocking her up in the process. Keaton suddenly found herself with a harsh reality: the man she continued to hook up with all these years was kind of an asshole. “I remember when I was younger, I honestly believed in some ridiculous way that you didn’t really lose people – that you would find someone who would be the person you lived with until you died,” admitted Keaton, years later. “Now that I’m older, time is valuable. You just think, gee, it would have been nice if we had parted a little earlier.”

Keaton’s mistake – reconciling with a bad ex – isn’t unique. Celebrities have a habit of getting back with their evil exes, no matter how immature or douchey they might be, especially if they’re not old enough to recognize a bad relationship when they’re in one. 2010 saw a number of bad couples split, get back together, only to split again months, even weeks later. It was a turbulent year for Miley Cyrus and the entire Cyrus family. After 17 years of marriage, Miley’s parents Tish and Billy Ray Cyrus filed for divorce. Meanwhile, Miley had to contend with relationship drama of her own. Miley’s boyfriend, Aussie actor Liam Hemsworth, reportedly wasn’t a fan of the Disney starlet’s risqué onstage dance moves, and they broke up in August after more than a year together. A mere two weeks later, they were strolling through Los Angeles, hand in hand. The reconciliation was almost as brief as their initial split, and Cyrus and Hemsworth broke it off for good in November. “There was no drama,” claimed a source. “The relationship just ran its course.” And although this is what they always say, it sounds perfectly plausible in this instance. Cyrus never looked in over her head during the relationship (as opposed to her dalliance with 20-something underwear model Justin Gaston), and Hemsworth seems like a nice enough young actor with the potential to be the next Mel Gibson (pre-meltdown, of course, though anything is possible). Miley and Liam were young and very fickle, but they had the luxury of having a relationship without any major complications…gurgling, pooping complications.

At 16, Jamie Lynn Spears was out to make a name for herself. Britney’s little sis honed her comic acting skills on the Nickelodeon sketch show All That before the kids’ network gave Jamie Lynn her own series, Zoey 101. In late 2007, she broke up with her high school boyfriend Casey Aldridge, a ladykilling hot shot on the football team. Concerned Aldridge would cheat on her while at college, Spears dumped him before he could get the chance. Days later, Spears learned she was pregnant. Even though they were split up, Aldridge did right by his baby mama and proposed to her in March 2008. But Aldridge was never what one might call “husband material.” In 2009, after their daughter Maddie Briann was born, Aldridge sustained serious injuries in a car wreck, and police charged him with driving recklessly. Stating the obvious, a source blabbed, “She did a lot of growing up but he didn’t.” Rather than walk down the aisle, Spears took their daughter and walked out.

That, however, is not the end of the story. This past August, the constant stream of papparazi that swarm Britney Spears every second of every day caught her at a Lady Gaga concert on a double date with her boyfriend Jason Trawick, Jamie Lynn, and, once again, Casey Aldridge. Casey was back in the picture for two months before Jamie Lynn tossed him out on his ass, reportedly fed up with (yet somehow still surprised by) his immature behavior. Despite their history, Spears made a classic mistake: she thought the dope she was with had changed.

In defense of the Spears, Aldridge remained a private figure during their time apart. He never went on TV, laying into Spears or other members of her family. Spears never had to contend with Aldridge trying to cash on his fifteen minutes of fame. The same cannot be said for Bristol Palin. The poster child for unwed teenage motherdom (and, paradoxically, abstinence), Palin and her high school boyfriend Levi Johnston became household names after John McCain tapped Palin’s mom to be his running mate in 2008. Sarah promised her supporters Bristol planned to get married, and Levi concurred. “We were planning on getting married a long time ago with or without the kid,” admitted the self-described ‘redneck’. “That was the plan from the start.” After his son Tripp was born that December, Johnston found out that good intentions could be undone by an overbearing mother-in-law-to-be. He and Bristol broke off their engagement in March ’09, and Levi wasted no time telling anyone who would listen that the Alaska governor made visiting with Tripp an awkward experience. “She’s a politician,” he later stated. “She knows how to throw in a fake smile and look happy.”

Johnston spent the better part of the next 18 months offending the Palins in every way and saying yes to every offer he received. Shirtless pics with infant son for GQ? Check! Pistachio commercial with birth control joke? Check! Nude spread for Playgirl? You betcha! He and Bristol faced off in court on multiple occasions (he sued her for joint custody, she sued him for child support), rendering any chance of a reconciliation distant, if not impossible. Then a funny thing happened last June. After spending the day together with Tripp, Johnston texted Palin the message, “I miss you. I love you. I want to be with you again.” Really, what choice did Bristol have except to take Levi back after a romantic text like that? “Levi and I are turning a new page here as co-parents to this wonderful boy and putting aside the past,” announced Bristol. A month later, without the approval of their parents, Levi and Bristol got engaged for the second time, and Levi sounded like a changed man – he was apologizing for his past comments and prior immaturity. If it sounded too good to be true, it was. On August 3, less than three weeks after announcing their re-engagement, the wedding was scrapped for the second time. “The final straw,” said Bristol, “was him flying to Hollywood for what he told me was to see some hunting show but come to find out it was that music video mocking my family. …He’s just obsessed with the limelight and I got played.”

It’s one thing when only one half of a couple is limelight-obsessed (though it’s debatable whether Bristol “Dancing With the Stars” Palin is any less obsessed than Johnston), but things really get complicated when both the guy and the girl are attention whores. Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag made a career of grabbing headlines any way they could. “Speidi” flipped their fifteen minutes of Hills fame, thanks in no small part to the cloud of weirdness that surrounded them. Glimpses into their private married life cast the couple as fame-obsessed recluses who’d spent all their money on designer clothes and $400,000 healing crystals. Montag’s friends and family claimed living with Pratt had changed her, and they weren’t just talking about the ten plastic surgery procedures Montag underwent in a single day. The term they most often used to describe Heidi Montag was “brainwashed”. Last spring, it appeared as if someone finally de-programmed Montag, who tweeted, “I am not Heidi Pratt, I am Heidi Montag.” Days later, word broke that Speidi was no more. Of course, it was always a challenge getting an accurate read off anything Montag or Pratt did. Neither one was known for being particularly truthful, and there were conflicting reports as to whether their split was real or another sad publicity ploy. When Montage filed for divorce in July, Pratt took the Levi Johnston approach of sounding like a changed man. “We love each other but I’m a fame whore and I’ll never grow out of it,” admitted Pratt. “[Heidi] knows that and doesn’t want that.” Something about this new, introspective Spencer Pratt must have appealed to Montag, and after a September trip to Costa Rica together, they had another announcement. “Costa Rica really put things in perspective,” they gushed. “We do love each other and realized we do want to spend the rest of our lives together.” Passing up a golden opportunity to escape Pratt once and for all, Montag called off the divorce, content with being weird and isolated alongside her soulmate.

If there’s anything we can take away from these celebrity romantic misadventures, it’s that when it comes to love, it’s easy to make the same mistake twice. A few romantic words or gestures can be enough to melt away past conflicts, but it can be tough to make things work if the people in question never really changed to begin with. … Unless you’re Heidi and Spencer, in which case you clearly deserve each other, and we wish you nothing but the best.

For all the latest on celebrity hookups, breakups, and scandals, check us out at SexDegrees.net, the Internet’s premier infotaining celebrity relationship database!

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