Celeb Couples That Called Off Their Weddings With Days To Spare (Or Even Less)

Not every engagement or wedding goes smoothly. For those in the spotlight, any issues that arise before or after the ceremony can quickly become matters of global news. We've heard about the celebrity weddings that were almost derailed by awkward moments, but what about the couples that didn't even make it to the altar? More celebrities have called off their wedding with just days to spare than you'd think.

Take Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, for example. Lopez has been married four times in total, most recently to Affleck. But before their 2022 reconciliation, the pair were almost married nearly two decades prior. Lopez and Affleck called off their 2003 wedding three days before the ceremony, a decision they both attributed to the pressure of being in an incredibly public relationship. "We had a big wedding planned — 14 ushers and bridesmaids — and three days before, we just crumbled under the pressure," Lopez explained in her February 2024 documentary "The Greatest Love Story Never Told" (per E! News). Affleck agreed, citing "the massive amount of scrutiny around our private life" as the main reason for his and Lopez's break-up. 

We would later get to see Jennifer Lopez rock some of her most timeless wedding dresses for the splashy "Bennifer" wedding celebrations in 2022. But the iconic on-again, off-again couple wasn't able to keep the good vibes going for long. They separated just months after Lopez's documentary about their relationship debuted, with the couple finalizing their divorce less than a year later in early 2025. However, Lopez and Affleck are far from the only couple in Hollywood to end their relationship days ahead of their planned wedding.

Like Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, Julia Roberts and Kiefer Sutherland broke off their engagement only three days before the wedding. '80s and '90s icon Julia Roberts, who would popularize the oversized suit trend via one highly-imitated red carpet look, called off her wedding to "Flatliners" co-star Sutherland after a series of dramatic events. Though they started dating soon after they met in 1990, and even lived together, Sutherland moved out of Roberts' home for a period in 1991, during which he spent time with dancer Amanda Rice. Rice would later sell her story to a tabloid, discussing things that Sutherland had apparently told her about Roberts. Sutherland's representatives, of course, denied that his relationship with Rice was romantic. Surprisingly, Roberts and Sutherland got engaged after the entire ordeal, but their marriage would never come to fruition. 

Roberts has spoken publicly about the seemingly sudden breakup in the years following. She clarified to Rolling Stone in 1994 that Sutherland was not blindsided by her calling off the wedding. "I've read 'days before,' 'hours before,' 'minutes before,'" Roberts told the outlet. "And the fact is, it doesn't matter how many times you say it — he wasn't waiting at the altar, it wasn't the day before, somebody else didn't tell him, he didn't see it on TV — people don't want to know." 

Unlike Julia Roberts and Kiefer Sutherland, or Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, Usher Raymond and Tameka Foster called off their wedding mere hours before the ceremony was set to begin. The morning of Usher and Foster's ceremony in July 2007, which was supposed to be held at producer L.A. Reid's estate in the New York Hamptons, the pair's star-studded guest list was informed that the wedding would not take place. People reported that floral arrangements were seen being removed from Reid's home that same afternoon. At the time, publicist Patti Webster informed the media of the couple's sudden decision in a vague statement. "No additional information will be given regarding the circumstances of the cancellation, but we hope the privacy of this matter will be respected," Webster wrote. 

Foster, an A-list stylist who has worked with celebrities like Jay-Z, Patti LaBelle, and Lauryn Hill, later explained what went wrong. According to Foster, Usher called off the wedding because he was led to believe by his mother that Foster was five years older than she said she was (Usher was 28 and Foster was 37 at the time of their would-be wedding). After finding out that this wasn't true, the pair married one month later, though they later divorced after only two years of marriage. In 2021, Foster opened up to Page Six about how the media's disparaging comments about her appearance and then-relationship with the singer "hurt [her] really badly." "The truth is, I really, really loved my husband," Foster said. "It wasn't gold-digging. I always said that I took a pay cut when I married him."