In 2005, Jason Momoa's teenage dream came true.
He finally came face to face with Lisa Bonet, his Cosby Show crush, at a jazz club in Hollywood, after which they bonded over grits and pints of Guinness at the 101 Coffee Shop. "And, you know, the rest is history," Momoa told James Corden, regaling the Late Late Show audience with his "anything is f--king possible" love story several years ago.
Already the parents of two kids together, daughter Lola and son Nakoa-Wolf joining Zoë Kravitz—Bonet's daughter with first husband Lenny Kravitz—in the family fold, the couple opted to marry in October 2017.
"I never thought I would but...I plan on being with her for the rest of my life," Momoa told E! News that December at the Justice League premiere, Bonet by his side. "But it's just that moment where," he made a gesture indicating he was taking it up a notch, "let's go to the next level. 'I'll be here your whole life.'"
Alas, now their relationship really is history (as is the 101 Coffee Shop, which closed after 20 years in 2021, another COVID-19 pandemic casualty).
Momoa and Bonet revealed in a Jan. 12 joint statement he posted on Instagram that they were "parting ways in marriage"—not due to any dearth of love, they assured, but because they were freeing each other "to be who we are learning to become...Our devotion unwavering to this sacred life & our Children."
All told, they'd been a couple for 16 years, Bonet telling Porter in 2018 that, while they weren't necessarily "full-on from the moment we saw each other," they had been "together from the day that we met."
Fans have since been wondering whether Bonet was foreshadowing the news when she sat down with her A Different World co-star Marisa Tomei for an Interview magazine chat that was published Dec. 21. Tomei asked what had been "calling" her lately.
"Definitely learning how to be authentically me," Bonet replied, "learning to be new, and following this invitation from the universe to step into this river of uncertainty. We've eliminated all this extra noise, and now it's time to grow our roots deeper into our own values."
The "invitation from the universe" could also easily be the COVID-19 pandemic—and, frankly, almost everything she said came off as fairly profound—but she is embarking on a new chapter and theoretically navigating a river of uncertainty.
Four years has frequently played the part of forever in Hollywood, but Momoa and Bonet had chugged along for 12 beforehand. Changing times aside, it remains unclear what exactly prompted the couple to reconsider their future together, but they certainly aren't alone when it comes to marriage serving as the beginning of the end, instead of endgame.
Here are eight other famous duos who certainly thought they knew what they were saying "I do" to when they tied the knot, but whose unions unraveled sooner rather than later: