It’s been nearly two decades since Kristen Stewart landed her breakout role in the teen vampire romance franchise, Twilight.
These days, the 35-year-old actress has evolved from rebellious child star to respected industry professional, even receiving an Academy Award nomination for her role as Princess Diana in 2021’s Spencer.
This week, she also marked another momentous occasion – tying the knot with her long-term girlfriend Dylan Meyer in an ‘intimate’ wedding ceremony in Los Angeles on Sunday.
Prior to sparking a relationship with the 37-year-old screenwriter in 2019, Stewart was once famously known for her on-again off-again relationship with Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson, which shockingly ended at the hands of her infidelity.
In July 2012, a 22-year-old Stewart was infamously photographed in the arms of 41-year-old married director Rupert Sanders.
The pair had just come off the heels of promoting their film, Snow White and the Huntsman, as they were captured in a parking lot making out in Stewart’s car.
Kristen Stewart, then 22, was photographed in the arms of 41-year-old married director Rupert Sanders in July 2012. At the time, she was in a relationship with her Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson
Stewart was photographed in her car with the Snow White and the Huntsman director, who was married to then-wife Liberty Ross
They were seen standing off the side of the road, before Stewart dropped Sanders off a few blocks from the Hollywood Hills home he was sharing with Ross and their two children
They were later seen standing off the side of the road where the groping continued, before the actress dropped Sanders off a few blocks from the Hollywood Hills home he was sharing with his then-wife, model Liberty Ross, and their two young children.
What’s more, Ross starred as Stewart’s on-screen mother in her husband’s Snow White movie adaptation.
The scandal instantly shocked fans of the Twilight couple, who had formed an instant connection when they met in 2007 as on-screen lovers Bella Swan and Edward Cullen.
While Stewart and Pattinson briefly split following the affair, they rekindled their romance only to call it quits for good in May 2013.
Meanwhile, Ross didn’t leave any room for reconciliation and swiftly filed for divorce from Sanders in January 2013. But the British-born model hasn’t fared too terribly in the years since their divorce, considering she’s now married to a record executive worth $1 billion, Jamie Iovine.
As Stewart celebrates her long-awaited nuptials to Meyer, here’s a look back at the cheating scandal that led to the demise of one of Hollywood’s most adored A-list couples.
Kristen Stewart
Back in 2007, Stewart was just 17 years old when she crossed paths with British heartthrob Pattinson while filming the first installment of the Twilight movies, based on the best-selling books by Stephanie Meyer.
Despite much fan speculation in the years that followed, the former couple didn’t confirm their relationship until 2010.
But that all came crashing down on July 17, 2012 when the Charlie’s Angels star was photographed in a romantic rendezvous with her Snow White and the Huntsman director.
In 2007, Stewart first crossed paths with her Twilight co-star Pattinson. The pair didn’t confirm their romance until 2010
Pattinson and Stewart (seen in 2011) broke up in 2012 after photos surfaced of her cuddling up with her Snow White director
Stewart tied the knot on Sunday with her long-term girlfriend, screenwriter Dylan Meyer. The couple were first linked in August 2019
Just days after the photos surfaced, Stewart issued an emotional apology to her boyfriend, describing her tryst with the married director as a ‘momentary indiscretion.’
‘I’m deeply sorry for the hurt and embarrassment I’ve caused to those close to me and everyone this has affected,’ she said. ‘This momentary indiscretion has jeopardized the most important thing in my life, the person I love and respect the most, Rob. I love him, I love him, I’m so sorry.’
While it was reported at the time that Stewart and Pattinson had briefly separated, the couple reunited in September 2012 and had appeared to work through their rough patch while promoting Breaking Dawn: Part 2.
But less than a year after her cheating scandal, the pair officially split in May 2013 after almost four years together.
Speaking to The Sun in one of her first interviews since the affair, the Happiest Season actress admitted she has made ‘mistakes’ and explained how backlash from fans made her want to lock herself up in her hotel room.
‘You have to be OK with your own fears,’ Stewart said in 2012. ‘If you’re an honest person you’ll make mistakes, but that’s when the most interesting things happen.
Both Stewart and Sanders issued apologies for the cheating scandal, as the actress described their affair as a ‘momentary indiscretion’
‘I used to just stay in my hotel room rather than deal with everything, but if you get too caught up in what others think you become a really disjointed person.’
Nearly two years after her split from Pattinson, Stewart gave a rare glimpse at how the scandalous affair turned her world upside down.
‘I lit my universe on fire and I watched it burn,’ she lamented to Marie Claire in July 2015. As for what led to the affair, Stewart admitted she had experienced ‘a really traumatic period in my early 20s that kick-started something in me that was a bit more feral.’
‘Between ages 15 and 20, it was really intense. I was constantly anxious. I was kind of a control freak,’ she said. ‘If I didn’t know how something was going to turn out, I would make myself ill, or just be locked up or inhibited in a way that was really debilitating.’
After pulling back from the spotlight, Stewart was able to more easily find perspective about that time in her life. In 2019, marking her most candid interview about the affair, Stewart insisted to SiriusXM host Howard Stern that she ‘did not f**k’ the married Snow White director.
Stewart acknowledged it was assumed that she did sleep with the father-of-two, and admitted that when ‘you make out with a dude in public, it definitely looks like you did [have sex].’
During her Howard Stern interview in 2019, Stewart said she ‘did not f**k’ Sanders after being photographed kissing the married director in 2012
The actress claimed the ‘slut-shaming’ she faced in the wake of the cheating scandal ‘was so absurd’
But the actress maintained that she wasn’t ‘in love’ with Sanders and she fully ‘wanted to’ marry her Twilight co-star and live-in boyfriend.
‘We were together for years, that was my first [love],’ she told Stern about Pattinson. ‘I was super in love with my high school boyfriend. Super f***ing in love with him but me and Rob were a little older.’
Perhaps what bothered Stewart the most about the entire incident was the ‘s**t-shaming’ she faced from the public for her involvement in the affair, as well as being banned from the film’s sequel.
‘We lived in a different time then, you know what I mean? I feel like the s**t-shaming that went down was so absurd,’ she told Stern, before adding: ‘And they should’ve put me in that movie! It would’ve been better. Not to be a d**k, but….’
‘They didn’t put me in that movie because I went through such a highly publicized scandal, and so they were, like, scared of touching that.’
As for her relationship with Pattinson today, the former exes have shared brief but pleasant words about each other since calling it quits over a decade ago.
The exes had a surprise reunion in 2023 when Stewart and Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke ‘crashed’ Pattinson’s 37th birthday party
Stewart and Meyer reportedly procured their Los Angeles County marriage license on Tuesday of last week
The pair had a surprise reunion when Stewart, along with Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke, ‘crashed’ Pattinson’s 37th birthday party in 2023.
But don’t expect Stewart to be divulging any further details about her romance with her former co-star any time soon, as it seems the Love Lies Bleeding actress is now bored to death by the conversation.
‘Rob and I can’t just keep talking about that s**t, because it’s f**king weird,’ she told Rolling Stone in February 2024.
‘It’s like if someone kept asking you – I mean for literally decades – “But senior year in high school?” You’re like, “F**king A, man! I don’t know!”‘
Robert Pattinson
Despite being the scorned lover in his ex-girlfriend’s cheating scandal, Pattinson has maintained a relatively indifferent perspective when it comes to the end of his relationship with Stewart.
Two years after the affair, the Harry Potter star finally broke his silence in an interview with Esquire magazine – revealing that he’s actually quite understanding about the incident.
Two years after Stewart’s affair, Pattinson told Esquire about the incident: ‘S**t happens, you know?’
Following his split from Stewart, the Batman star was engaged to singer FKA Twigs in 2015 but called off their engagement in 2017
Pattinson has been in a relationship with actress and model Suki Waterhouse since 2018. The couple welcomed their first child together, a daughter, in March 2024
‘S**t happens, you know?’ he said. ‘It’s just young people… It’s normal! And honestly, who gives a s**t?
‘The hardest part was talking about it afterwards. Because when you talk about other people, it affects them in ways you can’t predict,’ he continued.
‘It’s like that scene in Doubt, where the character is talking about how to take back gossip? They throw all those feathers from a pillow into the sky and you’ve got to go and collect all the feathers.’
Following his split from Stewart, the Batman star was engaged to singer FKA Twigs in 2015 but called off their engagement in 2017.
He’s been in a relationship with actress and model Suki Waterhouse since 2018. The couple welcomed their first child together, a daughter, in March 2024.
Rupert Sanders
For Sanders, all it took was a kiss for the movie director to implode his relationship with his then-wife of 10 years.
The English filmmaker married model Ross in 2002 after meeting through Ross’s brother, award-winning composer Atticus Ross.
Snow White and the Huntsman had marked Sanders’ first feature film debut, after previously directing several TV commercials. But that all came to a screeching halt when he was caught kissing the film’s lead star, who was also in a relationship at the time.
Sanders and model Liberty Ross were married in 2002. She filed for divorce in January 2013 following his cheating scandal
Snow White and the Huntsman had marked Sanders’ first feature film debut. He’s gone on to direct 2017’s Ghost in the Shell and 2024’s The Crow
Sanders said he was ‘utterly distraught about the pain I have caused my family’ in an emotional apology
Shortly after Stewart issued a public apology to Pattinson for the affair, Sanders shared his own emotional apology directed towards his wife and their two children: daughter Skyla and son Tennyson.
‘I am utterly distraught about the pain I have caused my family,’ he told People. ‘My beautiful wife and heavenly children are all I have in this world. I love them with all my heart. I am praying that we can get through this together.’
However, Sanders’ public lament for his wife wasn’t enough as she filed for divorce in January 2013. Their split was finalized in July 2014.
Speaking about the affair five years later, the filmmaker described the incident as a ‘momentary lapse.’
‘If you took people off the table for a momentary lapse, there would be no one making art,’ he told UK’s Metro in April 2017.
‘You never know what’s coming in life… Around every corner there’s something unexpected, and that’s life. You just have to brush yourself off and continue moving forward the best you can. Everyone makes mistakes. I am bound to make more mistakes, and I wouldn’t expect my life to be exciting if I didn’t.’
Sanders has since gone on to direct 2017’s Ghost in the Shell and 2024’s The Crow. He also directed the pilot episode of the Apple TV+ science fiction series Foundation.
Liberty Ross
Before Ross was forced to end her first marriage after her husband’s highly publicized affair, the 46-year-old London native had appeared on covers of British Vogue and in luxury campaigns for Burberry, Jimmy Choo and Dior.
But after tying the knot with Sanders in 2002, Ross took a long hiatus from modeling to focus on being a mother to her two children Skyla and Tennyson.
Just two weeks before her husband’s affair was revealed, the model admitted their 10-year marriage had suffered due to Sanders’ rising career in Hollywood.
‘I think that having been a model and so self-sufficient for those years, I was very ready to get married and have babies,’ she told You Magazine in July 2012. ‘I romanticized domesticity for a while, and loved having a shopping list of groceries stuck to the fridge for the first time.
‘But moving [from London to Los Angeles] and starting a life all over again was a lot harder than I had anticipated. I just didn’t think it would be as isolating and daunting as it turned out to be,’ she said.
‘I would never say out loud that I am raising my children alone, but a lot of the time it has felt like that,’ Ross continued. ‘I went from the glamour of working with Karl Lagerfeld and John Galliano to living on an isolated hilltop, with my husband gone most of the time.’
Ross, seen in 2014, took a brief hiatus from her successful modeling career to move to Los Angeles with Sanders and their two children
Ross appeared to react to the scandalous photos of Sanders and Stewart kissing by posting a series of cryptic tweets
At the time, Ross had seemed to think she and Sanders had conquered their differences – noting that they ‘rode through the really hard times and we stuck it out.’
But just days later, Ross would learn of her husband’s secret rendezvous with the actress who played her daughter in Snow White and the Huntsman.
The stunned model appeared to react to the scandalous photos by posting a series of cryptic tweets that seemed to reference the affair. In her first post, she retweeted a quote from Marilyn Monroe, which read: ‘Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.’
She followed this up with another retweet, this time quoting American author and poet Maya Angelou, saying: ‘If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.’
Ross then simply wrote, ‘Wow,’ presumably to highlight her shock at the news, before deleting her account.
This wasn’t her only comeuppance for her ex-husband, as Ross also received a hefty divorce settlement granting her $30,000 a month in spousal and child support and a percentage of some of his future film earnings.
She also was granted the former couple’s $1.6 million Hollywood Hills home and ownership of two other properties in London’s Waterloo and Ladbroke Grove.
These days, Ross has moved on with husband Jimmy Iovine, the billionaire co-founder of Interscope Records and Beats by Dr. Dre
The model and the wealthy executive were married in February 2016 after two years of dating
Despite the handsome settlement, Ross didn’t shy away from describing her divorce as ‘horrible’ to Vanity Fair.
‘I have no words to describe what we went through,’ she said in 2013. ‘But, I think, for me, something has to completely die for there to be a rebirth. I visualized [being] this sort of Masai warrior. I was just going to stand very still and very strong.’
Two years after the affair, Ross explained to Grazia how learning to trust her gut has been a vital lesson in the wake of her divorce.
‘The most valuable thing I can share is the importance of living in truth,’ she shared. ‘Sometimes, facing those truths can actually be your worst fear. Trusting your gut is always the best thing – no matter what people around you insist you should be doing or saying or thinking.
‘Only you know and once you live in truth your heart is completely free.’
These days, Ross has happily moved on with husband Iovine – the co-founder of Interscope Records and Beats by Dr. Dre, the latter of which was sold to Apple in 2014 for $3 billion.
Ross tied the knot with the 72-year-old executive in Malibu in February 2016 after two years of dating.
Speaking to Harper’s Bazaar UK shortly after sparking a new relationship with the wealthy businessman, the model revealed that she’s doing better than ever.
‘It’s amazing what two years does,’ Ross said. ‘Today, I feel happier than I’ve ever felt, and I’m in such a great place. All of us are: my kids are great, Rupert’s amazing, we have all moved on and everyone is doing really well.’
She also encouraged the public to ‘learn to forgive’ and expressed that she has ‘no problem with anyone involved’ in the scandalous affair.
‘I think we can grow from all experiences, even the most tragic, sh***y ones where you think you’re going to die,’ Ross said.
‘Actually, you know, there are ways of growing with them and learning from them and moving past them and accepting them. I just feel so lucky and peaceful with everything in life, and excited and happy.’