5 not-so-true romances: The couples who kept our tongues wagging

From David Justice and Halle Berry’s whirlwind romance to Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown’s divorce
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David Justice & Halle Berry
The actress spied the Braves right fielder on TV and sent him her number; less than 12 months later, they married in a ceremony at his Sandy Springs home on New Year’s Day 1993. But after its whirlwind start, the marriage was plagued by distance and jealousy. Berry filed for divorce in 1996, later admitting the split left her suicidal.

Photograph by Image Collect
Photograph by Image Collect

Ted Turner & Jane Fonda
The White House. The Oscars. The World Series. The media titan and Hollywood star’s romance was flashy. And turbulent: In a memoir, Fonda claimed Turner cheated on her a month after their December 1991 marriage. They divorced a decade later but remain amicable supporters of each other’s causes.

Photograph by Landov
Photograph by Landov

Lisa Lopes & Andre Rison
She rapped for megagroup TLC. He ran routes for the Falcons. But relationship drama made more headlines for “Left Eye” and Rison. Cases in point: In 1993 he was arrested, charged with beating her and firing a gun outside the Disco Kroger after bystanders tried to intervene; a year later, she set his mansion on fire. Yet the two remained on and off—rumored to be engaged—until her fatal car accident in 2002.

Photograph by Image Collect
Photograph by Image Collect

Marla Maples & Donald Trump
Dalton native Maples, the other woman who came between “the Donald” and his first wife, Ivana, wed Trump in 1993. From an eight-carat diamond to the six-foot-tall cake, their love was extravagant. But not lasting. When they divorced in 1997, the former Miss Hawaiian Tropic got a reported $1.9 million.

Photograph by Image Collect
Photograph by Image Collect

Whitney Houston & Bobby Brown
Once upon a time—before the reality show, “crack is whack,” or legal spectacle—Houston and Brown’s fairytale romance played out in Atlanta. Granted, it was no typical fairytale; after their 1992 wedding, they set up house in the Powers Ferry Road mansion once owned by pornographer Mike Thevis. But Atlanta loved to see them dining at the Palm Restaurant, holding court in Hotel Nikko, and singing at Forest Park’s Living Word Church of God in Christ, whose minister worked with Houston on 1996’s The Preacher’s Wife and wrote the film’s song “Hold on, Help Is on the Way.” The couple divorced in 2007, five years before her death.

Photograph by Image Collect
Photograph by Image Collect
This article originally appeared in our March 2015 issue.

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