These Are the Celebrity Couples Who Met Online

Social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic doesn't exactly make for ideal dating circumstances—or does it? Some of Hollywood's most celebrated couples, in fact, originally met online, be it through social media or on a dating app, proving that it is indeed possible to find love from the comforts of your own home. Given their busy schedules and demanding work lives, it makes sense why celebrity online dating stories are increasingly common for the likes of Mandy Moore and Ricky Martin, who've turned to the Interwebs to find their soulmates.

In fact, one in four engaged couples now meet via online, according to The Knot 2019 Jewelry & Engagement Study. Another one in five meet through mutual friends. And, no doubt, a digital courtship just meant that their first meeting IRL was that much more momentous. Here, we've rounded up celebrity couples who can trace their relationship origins to the world wide web.

Mandy Moore and Taylor Goldsmith

Getty Images

Love at first like? Mandy Moore and her husband, fellow musician Taylor Goldsmith, originally met in the most modern of ways—through Instagram. Moore told People back in 2017 that at the time, she was just a fan of Goldsmith's band, Dawes, and wanted to share her love for her music with her fans. "I took a picture of their album and posted it on Instagram," she said. "Somehow, Taylor saw it and sent a note to me."

Their back-and-forth DM banter soon turned into something more, but the pair still primarily communicated in written form. "We started emailing back and forth, then we went on a date and the rest is history," she said. "Thanks, Instagram, for helping me meet my fiancé!" The couple wed in November 2018 in an intimate, bohemian ceremony in their backyard, and have recently been sweetly enjoying each others' company in quarantine. (In early March, Moore told Ellen DeGeneres that life with Goldsmith is "dreamy" and full of music.)

Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas

Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas's relationship moved at seemingly lightening speed, but behind the scenes, their love and respect for one another really began on Twitter, of all places. The pair first met at the Vanity Fair Oscars Afterparty in 2017, with a now-infamous moment wherein Jonas dropped to one knee at the sight of the Quantico star in a black sequined Michael Kors gown. The former boy bander then not-so-subtlely reached out to Chopra with a direct message via Twitter.

Chopra, ever the savvy businesswoman, told Jonas to get in touch with her offline instead, telling him: "My team can read this. Why don't you just text me." The rest, as they say, is history. The pair got engaged in Crete in July 2017 and wed in a stunning multi-day celebration in India toward the end of 2018.

Brittany Snow and Tyler Stanaland

Getty Images

Brittany Snow usually likes to keep her personal life private, so fans of the Pitch Perfect star didn't know how she met now-husband Tyler Stanaland for some time. Last year, however, Snow told The Knot that though they technically knew of each other through mutual friends, it was ultimately social media that helped turn their mutual crushes into a full-fledged relationship. "I knew of Britt for obvious reasons," Stanaland, a real estate agent, told us. "But Britt was my unattainable crush forever." Snow, meanwhile, "saw his Instagram and knew of him. And I was like, 'That is the best looking man ever.' I always knew of him and was like, I'll never meet him."

But the couple did eventually meet—online—after they realized they were following one another on Instagram and Stanaland messaged the actress with a cheesy joke to break the ice. "I sent a direct message with the most embarrassing pickup line. A dad joke," he said. The pickup line obviously worked, however: the pair revealed that they were engaged in February 2019 and got married in Malibu in March.

Sarah Hyland and Wells Adams

Getty Images

Wells Adams, who competed on JoJo Fletcher's season of The Bachelorette, began wooing Modern Family actress Sarah Hyland on social media back in 2017. The pair were already exchanging flirty texts after Adams' stint as the resident bartender on that summer's season of Bachelor on Paradise, but things took a turn for the more serious when Adams reportedly sent Hyland a pretty direct message via Instagram: "The next time you're in L.A., I'm taking you out for drinks and tacos."

---

FOR YOU

The Sweet Love Stories of Our Favorite Soccer Players

These relationships are *pitch* perfect.

An Exclusive First Look Inside Tommy Winkler's Wedding

An exclusive first look inside TikTok star Tommy Winkler and wife Jessica Pappas' "whimsical, European spring garden" wedding.

Lainey Wilson Discusses Her "Western" Wedding Vision

In an interview with The Knot, the country singer discussed her nuptials to the former NFL player.

Adams told People at the time that he was thrilled to have met Hyland in this non-traditional way. "The internet—it's amazing. I'm amazed how smart the internet is," he said. "Because I just assume everyone on Twitter is an idiot, then I'm like, 'Wow!'" It was only fitting, then, that they made their relationship official that Halloween, by sharing matching photos of themselves dressed up as characters from Stranger Things. The couple got engaged in July 2019 on a beach while vacationing in Fiji.

Ricky Martin and Jwan Josef

Getty Images

Ricky Martin was first drawn to husband Jwan Josef because of his art—but soon became interested in its creator as well. The singer was scrolling through Instagram when he came across Josef's work and reached out via direct message. "I'm scrolling and I see this beautiful piece of art and I'm like, 'Whoa, how cool! Who's this?'" he once told Andy Cohen. "Then I started checking and all of a sudden I'm like, 'Ooh, ooh.' And then I wrote to him."

The pair exchanged messages back and forth for six months after Martin's initial contact, he told Attitude magazine, covering a broad range of topics "about life and existential issues." By the time they finally met up in person, it was love at first sight. "When I first saw him, I said, 'I am marrying this guy,' and apparently he said the same thing," Martin said. "Obviously he only told me this later on, you have to keep it to yourself at first. But I lost my breath when I saw him. Six months build up and it was very romantic."

Ryan Lochte and Kayla Rae Reid

Getty Images

Ryan Lochte, the Olympic gold medalist who enjoyed making headlines with catchphrases like "Jeah" back in 2016, met his now-wife on Instagram. In fact, Lochte told People, that was the same year when he reached out to Kayla Rae Reid via direct message in hopes that sparks might fly IRL. "She was living in L.A. at the time and I was in Charlotte, North Carolina," he told the magazine. "I went to L.A. for training and was going out to a club. She was going out to the same club with her girlfriend. I was like, 'Oh, maybe we'll finally get to see each other.'"

When they did end up meeting face-to-face that night, Lochte recalled that they "reached out and grabbed each other's hands and were like, 'This is you! Finally.' And we didn't want to let go." And they didn't: Lochte and Reid got married in a courthouse wedding in Gainesville, Florida, in early 2018, and then had a second wedding ceremony in Palm Springs that fall.

Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor

Shutterstock

A true testament that timing is everything. Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor first met at a party back in 2005, but were both with other people at the time. It wasn't until almost 10 years later that the pair reconnected—and stayed connected—and it was all thanks to Taylor making the first move. During a 2019 episode of Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, Paulson revealed that the pair had been following each other on Twitter for some time before things even began to have any hints of romance.

"It's a long story," Paulson said on the show. "We met a very, very long time ago. I was with someone else; she was, too. We sort of breezed by one another, and then started following each other on Twitter, and then …" Her fellow guest, Billy Eichner, filled in the blanks: "Holland Taylor slid into your DMs?" Paulson laughed and admitted it was true. "She actually did. Yeah, it's pretty great."