Matt Damon to Tom Selleck: long-lasting celebrity couples that found love in the most unusual ways

Matt Damon and his wife Luciana Barroso's first meeting is the stuff of legends. In 2003, Matt went out partying with the crew from the film he was shooting at the time, Stuck On You; when people started recognizing him and asking for autographs, Matt jumped behind the bar where Luciana worked to hide. 

The Good Will Hunting actor recalled the moment on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, saying, "I literally saw her across a crowded room, literally. Eight years and four kids later, that's my life. I don't know how else our paths would've crossed if that didn't happen."

Luciana shared her side of the story with Vogue Australia in 2018, recalling, "He had started getting recognized and asked for pictures and autographs, and then it got kind of aggressive because people are drinking and stuff. So he came and hid behind the bar."

"[He wanted to] just hang out back there and have a drink. He says, 'Oh, I saw you, and I really wanted to talk to you.'" Matt had trained as a bartender for a previous film, so he decided to get his hands dirty and help out.

 Luciana humorously added, "He made me a ton of money in tips that night because, of course, everyone wanted to go and see him."

"So it turned into a really fun night, and then 15 years later, here we are!" she said. The couple have now been married for 19 years and share three daughters, as well as Luciana's daughter, Alexia, from her first marriage.

Tom Selleck met Jillie Mack while filming Lassiter in London in 1983. He attended Andrew Lloyd Webber's West End musical 'Cats' eight times and took an immediate liking to the woman playing Rumpleteazer, Jillie.

His co-star at the time, Jane Seymour, found it amusing that Tom was so obsessed with the musical: "He kept telling me how great 'Cats' was," she told People. "I thought it was good, but I couldn't see going back a dozen times."

Tom told The Times that Jillie said, "Who the [expletive] is that?" when her cast mate noticed he had been staring at her all night and was unaware of his fame.

The Magnum PI actor eventually asked the actress out, and the rest is history. The pair have been married for 37 years and share a daughter, Hannah.

It's not often that you will meet the love of your life at a laundromat, but for Dolly Parton and her husband, Carl Dean, it was written in the stars.

The 'Jolene' singer was babysitting her nephew in Nashville in 1964 when Carl spotted her at a laundromat and tried to get her attention by calling out to her, she recalled to The New York Times. 

"I wouldn't go out with him. I mean, that was somethin' we was taught. You gotta know somebody, or they may take you on a back road and kill you."

Despite her initial misgivings, the pair met up, and things moved quickly from there. "He drove me straight to his folks' house and introduced me to his mother and daddy," Dolly remembered of their first week together.

"He said he knew right the minute he saw me that that's the one he wanted." The country music legend tied the knot with her beau in 1966, and while they have kept their relationship extremely private over the 58 years they have been married, he continues to be her strongest supporter and the love of her life.

Michael Caine fell in love with the former Miss Guyana, Shakira Baksh, in 1971 after seeing her in a Maxwell House coffee commercial. 

A mutual friend arranged their introduction, and Michael "fell in love with her in about eight minutes", he told the Radio Times. 

But for Shakira, it took slightly longer: "It took her two hours to fall in love with me," Michael said. Describing Shakira, the Batman actor told People she was "the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen." 

Shakira, on the other hand, was pleasantly surprised when they finally met. "He was everything I didn't expect. I had just seen him in Get Carter, and he seemed so aggressive and ruthless," she explained, but after getting to know him, she found him "charming and very gentle, someone whom I'd like to spend part of my life with." 

The pair have been married for a whopping 51 years and share a daughter, Natasha.

Viola Davis is living proof that manifestation works; the How to Get Away with Murder actress literally prayed for a husband and got exactly what she asked for.

She explained to Page Six, "I was the loneliest woman in the world, and someone said, 'You should just pray for a husband.' I said I wanted a big black man from the South who looked like a football player, who already had children, who maybe had been married before…three and a half weeks later, I met my husband." 

This man ticked every box for Viola: "I met Julius from Texas," she told Oprah in an interview. "Ex-football player, been married, raised his children on his own, was an actor. He invited me to church."

The pair worked together on the show City of Angels, where he played an anesthesiologist, and she played a nurse. "We were passing blood in a scene," she told US Weekly.

"He knew how lonely I was. I was out in LA, and I hated it, and he said, 'I'll show you around Los Angeles. I'll show you around the Santa Monica pier."

The fated couple quickly fell in love and married in 2003; they adopted a daughter, Genesis, in 2011, and Viola is also a loving stepmom to Julius's two kids from a previous marriage.

Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. met while filming the 1997 slasher flick I Know What You Did Last Summer, but the pair started out as solid friends before any romance blossomed.

The pair would hang out when Freddie drove Sarah to her gym, an hour away. "I started driving her, and that's when her and I became friends," he told Us Weekly.

"And we just would talk about life and stuff like that, and we had completely different philosophies on just about everything."

It wasn't until three years later, in a twist of fate, that they became more than just co-stars.

"We had made plans for dinner with a mutual friend, and the person canceled," Sarah told People. "We decided to have dinner anyway and never looked back. We were just two people catching up…we had a long car ride and a long dinner, and things just happened."

The pair quickly fell in love, and have been married for an incredible 22 years; they share kids Charlotte and Rocky.

Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell's love story blossomed years after they first met, and their first date is one to tell the grandkids! 

The two met while filming the Disney movie The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band when Kurt was just 16 and Goldie was 21, but they didn't get romantically involved until 17 years later when they worked together on the film Swing Shift.

Kurt recalled their reunion on CBS Sunday Morning, revealing that he put his "worst foot forward" when he saw her again as he was "severely hungover". 

The Overboard actress didn't seem to mind, though; they went out on a date shortly after, which took an interesting turn.

The fledgling couple broke into Goldie's newly purchased house because she didn't have the keys. Kurt recounted the story to People: "We eventually found our way upstairs, looking around at imaginary furniture...We were in the imaginary bedroom when the police walked in because we had to break into the place to get in."

Despite the unexpected police visit, the couple has been together for 41 years; they share a blended family with Kurt's son Boston from his previous marriage, Kate and Oliver from Goldie's previous marriage, and Wyatt, who they welcomed together in 1986.

Kate Winslet's first encounter with her now-husband, Ned Rocknroll [an excellent last name that he sadly legally changed back to Smith], was anything but conventional. 

They met on Richard Branson's [Ned's uncle] private Caribbean island during Hurricane Irma when the villa they were both staying in caught fire. 

Kate recalled the chaotic moment to Entertainment Tonight: "I met my husband in a house fire. I took a bra, passports, and my children. So I married him! I was like, 'I'll go for the guy with a head torch!"

Despite the dramatic start, they quickly bonded and began dating soon after. Reflecting on their meeting with People, the Titanic actress said, "I believe strangers can meet, and their lives can change so much that they simply can't go back to being the person they once were."

"Even now, I oftentimes find myself looking for an item of clothing or a book or something, and I go, 'Where have I put that?' And Ned will look at me and go, 'Did it get burnt in the fire?'"

The fated couple married in 2012, and share a son, Bear Blaze; Ned is also a loving stepfather to Kate's two other children from her previous marriages.

Carey Mulligan and Marcus Mumford's romance spans decades and is perfect romance novel fodder. 

They first met at a Christian summer camp when they were 12 years old and became fast friends; Carey even wrote about him in her diary, she told the SmartLess podcast, calling him "the nicest [and] the kindest person I'd ever met…I gave him a nine and a half out of ten."

 "I also wrote that he definitely wasn't boyfriend material," she laughed. "Not that I'd ever had a boyfriend at that time! But I decided that he was not it."

The pair wrote to each other for years as pen pals but fell out of touch until reconnecting years later; by this time, Carey was a rising star after her turn in An Education, which earned her an Academy Award nom, as well as SAG and Golden Globe noms.

After releasing their song 'Little Lion Man', Marcus was hitting new heights with his indie folk band, Mumford and Sons.

After falling in love years after they first met, Carey and Marcus married in 2012 and now share three kids: Evelyn, Wilfred, and a baby girl whose name is unknown.

Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard had an unconventional first meeting, but it eventually led to a lasting relationship. 

Kristen shared on Instagram that she first met the actor at a mutual friend's birthday dinner, but they didn't hit it off immediately. 

"The only thing I remember is that he talked so much," Kristen told the Today show. "I was like, 'This guy can talk.' And then I didn't know who he was. I'm like, 'Maybe is that one of the guys from 'Jackass' or something?'"

Two weeks later, they bumped into each other at a hockey game, and the Frozen actress recalled the weird moment when their romance began: "He asked for gum, I said no, I didn't have any," she told Entertainment Tonight.

"Then I pulled the gum out of my mouth and said,' Only this.' Then he took it." 

Dax, never one to beat around the bush, got her number from a friend and sent her a message, which read, "Hi, my name is Dax. I violated your privacy and got your number from Shauna. How do you feel about that?"  

Evidently, Kristen loved it. The couple have been married for 11 years now and have two daughters, Lincoln and Delta.

Steve Harvey knew he was going to marry Marjorie the moment he laid eyes on her.

On The Steve Harvey Show, Marjorie recounted the moment they met: she was running late to see one of his comedy shows in Memphis in 1990 and tried to sneak in.  

As she found her seat, Steve told the audience, "I'm sorry, I don't know who this is, but I'm going to marry her."

"I thought he was gonna give me the business because he got real quiet," she recalled. "He was just staring at me. I thought I was going to become part of the show."

Though the pair didn't connect at the time, they met again in 2005 and married two years later. 

Reflecting on their initial connection, Marjorie told Essence magazine, "I knew he was The One shortly after I started [dating] him…but then he just left. Disappeared." 

Steve admitted that he wasn't in the right headspace to be the best man he could be for her; he ended up marrying another woman, but thankfully, the pair found each other again in 2005 and married in 2007. 

Steve, already a father of four, adopted Marjorie's three children, Morgan, Lori, and Jason, when they married.

Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne were intricately tied together through music; Sharon's father, Don Arden, was the manager of Black Sabbath, and Sharon met the rocker when she was just 18, in 1970, although no sparks flew at the time. 

After Ozzy was fired from the band in 1978, the 'Crazy Train' singer sought Sharon's help as his new manager, and she accepted.

Ozzy struggled with substance abuse after being kicked out of the band, and Sharon was by his side for every step of his recovery. 

The pair began dating after this, and Sharon played a pivotal role in Ozzy's solo career. Their relationship endured many ups and downs, but Sharon pushed Ozzy to release his debut solo album, Blizzard of Ozz, which brought him great acclaim.

The couple have been married for 42 years and share three children: Aimee, Kelly and Jack.