Celebrity relationships come and go, virtually keeping tabloids and gossip mags in business, but every now and then a celeb pairing will emerge that effectively prints the front pages for them. Spewing a huge cloud of black ash into the sky wherever they are, these bad relationships cast a toxic cloud over the careers of the gruesome twosomes that threatened to eclipse their reputations, and sometimes, even their careers.
Whilst these relationships were never short of fiery passion, like Eyjafjallajokull, they were always destined to erupt. Join us as AskMen counts down the Top 10: Volcanic Relationships.
No.1 – Sid Vicious & Nancy Spungen
If you ever need proof that a volcanic relationship is bad for your health, look no further than Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. The Sex Pistols’ bassist met the American groupie when she moved to London 1977, and after a tumultuous 23-month relationship Nancy was dead, apparently killed by Sid.
The relationship, apparently founded on sex and drugs, came to a tragic end in 1978 at the Chelsea Hotel in New York, when an ambulance called by Sid found Nancy dead from a stab wound to the abdomen. Sid was charged with manslaughter, served 55 days on Rikers Island, and died from a heroin overdose on the day of his release.
No.2 – Lana Turner & Johnny Stompanato
Lana Turner was one of the most popular and successful golden-era Hollywood starlets with a prodigious appetite for men. She married eight times to seven different men, and often boasted of her sexual conquests; however, it would be her volcanic affair with mob enforcer Johnny Stompanato that would earn her a place in Hollywood folklore.
The couple met in 1957, with Turner besotted with Stompanato’s sexual prowess, however, when she found out about his shady career, she tried to end their relationship for fear of bad press. The stormy relationship lasted a whole year, with Stompanato famously squaring up with Sean Connery on set before being deported from the UK. The affair ended in true volcanic fury with Turner’s daughter stabbing the mobster to death in their Beverly Hills home in 1958.
No.3 – Madonna & Sean Penn
Madonna and Sean Penn’s short-lived romance is something of a Hollywood legend. The couple married after a brief courtship in 1985, with Penn famously firing a gun at paparazzi in a helicopter before wrestling one who had gate-crashed the party. Penn later admitted that he had been drunk throughout most of the short-lived marriage, which survived Penn attacking Madonna with a baseball bat and the filming of the atrocious Shangai Surprise in which both starred.
The final straw came when Penn held the pop star against her will for nine hours after breaking into her Malibu mansion in 1989. Madonna dropped the assault charges as she apparently couldn’t bear to see “the love of her life” thrown into jail again. Unsurprisingly, the couple divorced not long after.
No.4 – Whitney Houston & Bobby Brown
When two successful musicians come together in matrimony, you might expect beautiful music, but this wasn’t the case with Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown. The couple married in 1992 after a three-year relationship on the eve of Houston’s rise to mega-stardom with The Bodyguard and things spiralled out of control from there.
Suffering drug abuse, arrests, accusations of drug-trafficking, mental abuse, and a reality TV show, the volcano that was the Brown-Houston partnership was constantly erupting and it finally spewed it’s last toxic cloud when the couple finally divorced in 2007.
No.5 – Amy Winehouse & Blake Fielder-Civil
Amy Winehouse and Blake Fielder-Civil’s relationship is constantly spewing out noxious fumes wherever the couple go. Whether it is revelations of the couple’s allegedly prodigious drug-taking, tabloid exposes of lesbian threesomes, jailbird Blake’s rumoured affairs with transsexuals or being snapped bruised and bloodied in the street, this volcanic relationship is constantly threatening to erupt.
Although divorced, the couple are now apparently back together, but we would expect this one to start spewing lava again in the very near future.
No.6 – Pamela Anderson & Tommy Lee
A marriage between a former Baywatch beauty and a rock-and-roll drummer looks to have a shaky foundation even on paper, and Pamela Anderson’s three-year marriage to former Motley Crue star Tommy Lee played out true to form.
Tommy was arrested and jailed for apparently kicking Pamela, and after filing for divorce and reconciling twice, the couple finally split for good in 1998. They reunited for a short period in 2008 before splitting again proving that a long dormant volcano can still pose a risk.
No.7 – Charlie Sheen & Denise Richards
When a volcano erupts, there is always a risk that it will keep spewing out hot lava long after the main event, which is just like Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards’ relationship. The couple divorced in 2006, after four years of marriage, with the former Bond girl citing Sheen’s drink, sex, drugs, and gambling problems as grounds for divorce.
Although the couple have two young children, it didn’t stop them from behaving like kids in a long and messy divorce that ended with Richards taking out a restraining order against the Wall Street star.
No.8 – Kate Moss & Pete Doherty
Kate Moss has always had a penchant for rock stars and debauchery, so her unholy alliance with the most debauched rocker of them all, Pete Doherty, was a recipe for disaster from the start. The couple met at Moss’ 31st birthday party in 2005, and then they embarked on a tumultuous on-off relationship that lasted until 2007.
They were engaged for a short while, but the ex-Libertines front man’s various drug-addictions, prison spells, rehab, and arrests proved much for the supermodel who is now dating The Kills guitarist Jamie Hince.
No.9 – Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor
The story of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’s volcanic relationship seems fit for a golden-age Hollywood movie that the stars were famous for making. Although they were both married at the time, the couple embarked on an affair in 1961 whilst filming Cleopatra, and they married in 1964. Burton famously described Taylor’s breasts as “apocalyptic” but civilisation-toppling boobs weren’t enough to keep the couple together, and after 10 years of marriage, the pair divorced.
Burton’s legendary hard-drinking and combative nature didn’t deter Taylor, however, and the couple remarried less than a year after they had divorced only to divorce a second time after another 11 months of marriage.
No.10 – Lindsay Lohan & Samantha Ronson
Redheads are notoriously fiery, so it’s no wonder that former child star and full-blown ginger Lindsay Lohan’s lesbian relationship with socialite DJ Samantha Ronson ended up with a full-scale lava flow. The couple initially denied their relationship and it went on to last a whole 18 months longer than most skeptics predicted.
The notoriously flaky LiLo publicly struggled with a drink and drug problem that probably didn’t help the relationship that ended with a very public break up. Rumours still surface of an ongoing row between the two, meaning this toxic cloud could shadow the pair for a while longer yet.
