Industry
How to anchor and check dates in celebrity dating timelines
How to anchor each date in celebrity dating timelines to a filing, a license or a dated statement, and how to check an entry before listing it.
A dating timeline is only as good as its earliest sourced date. Everything after that is arithmetic on a public record.
Below is the dating timelines list this desk maintains: for each couple, the anchor event and its date, the source type that fixes it, and what the record still cannot show. The rules for fixing and checking those dates follow.
What to take away
- Every entry needs a first-party or documentary anchora filing, a decree, a licensing record, a dated statement.
- The docket date and the decree date are different dates. Publishing the wrong one moves the whole timeline.
- A record proves an event happened. It does not prove a relationship was happy, exclusive or over.
- Ring prices and filing fees belong in named variables, not invented figures. Substituting your own numbers is the only honest version.
- Check each entry against the current couples facts page before you publish a status.
The dating timelines list, by name
Each row below names the couple, the anchor event and its date, and the source type that fixes it. Where a date rests on an announcement rather than a document, it is marked as announced rather than confirmed.
| Timeline | Anchor event and date | Source type | What the record cannot show |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez | Engagement announced April 2022; marriage license issued Clark County, Nevada, July 2022; divorce petition filed Los Angeles County, August 2024 | County clerk license; Superior Court docket | Whether the separation began before the filing date |
| Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen | Marriage 2009; divorce petition filed and decree entered Florida, October 2022 | Florida court docket | Asset division, which the filing did not itemize |
| Kim Kardashian and Kanye West | Marriage May 2014, Florence, Italy; dissolution petition filed Los Angeles County, February 2021; decree entered November 2022 | Superior Court docket | Custody terms beyond the public stipulation |
| Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie | Marriage August 2014, Correns, France; dissolution petition filed Los Angeles County, September 2016; decree entered 2019 | Superior Court docket; French civil registry | The sealed custody record |
| Jason Momoa and Lisa Bonet | Marriage 2017; separation announced January 2022; dissolution filed Los Angeles County, January 2024 | Dated joint statement; Superior Court docket | The gap between separation and filing |
The dates in that table are the ones a county clerk or a court docket will confirm. The rest of a timeline is context, and context is where most lists go wrong.
The exact dates behind four rows
Several rows above carry only a month or a year. The full dates, as the couples' published biographies give them, are these:
- Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen.Married on February 26, 2009, in a Catholic ceremony at St. Monica Catholic Church in Santa Monica, California; finalized their divorce on 28 October 2022.
- Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.Became engaged on October 21, 2013, and married on May 24, 2014, at Forte di Belvedere in Florence, Italy.
- Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.Legally married on August 14, 2014, with the wedding ceremony at Château Miraval, France, on August 23, 2014; Jolie filed for divorce on September 19, 2016; the divorce became legal on April 12, 2019.
- Jason Momoa and Lisa Bonet.It was previously believed that they had married on November 15, 2007; they did not marry until October 2017. They announced their split in January 2022. When Bonet filed for divorce in January 2024, she listed their date of separation as October 7, 2020, and the divorce was finalized on July 9, 2024.
The Momoa and Bonet row is the lesson in one line. A widely repeated wedding date was ten years early, and the separation date in the court filing sits more than a year before the announcement. A timeline built on the announcement alone would have been wrong twice.
Why the docket date is not the decree date
A dissolution has at least two dates that matter and they are weeks or months apart. The petition date starts the case. The decree date ends it.
Petition vs. decree dates
- Petition datestarts the case
- Decree dateends the case
- Gaplength of the case
- LA County entriesmonths to a year
A timeline that uses one for the other is off by the length of the case, which on the Los Angeles County entries above runs from months to more than a year. Readers notice. So do the subjects.
Pull both dates from the docket, label them, and let the gap show. The gap is often the most factual thing on the page.
What a license proves and what it does not
A marriage license issued in Clark County, Nevada, proves a license was issued there. It does not prove where the ceremony happened, who attended, or whether the couple lived in Nevada afterward.
That distinction matters more than it looks. A license is a jurisdiction record, and jurisdiction is the whole story. California is a community property state. New York and Texas are not, and Texas divides marital property under its own rules. Davidson County, Tennessee and Cook County, Illinois each keep their own indexes.
None of that is legal advice, and none of it should be applied to a named couple by a writer. Name the county clerk or the court, note the jurisdiction, and stop. A licensed attorney in that state is the only person who can say what the division means.
Reading the record without over-reading it
A decree entered is a fact. A decree entered tells you nothing about why. The most common failure in this material is treating a filing as a statement about the people in it.
Three checks keep an entry honest:
Three checks for an honest entry
- Attach primary document or docket number and county
- Write the date the record was checked
- Note what the document cannot establish
- Announcement is a source, not confirmation
- The anchor.Does the row rest on a document (a license, a docket entry, a decree) or on a first-party statement, and does the row say which?
- The date type.Is the date an event date, a filing date, a decree date or an announcement date, and is it labeled as that and nothing else?
- The checked date.When was the record last looked at, and is that date written on the row, separate from the event date?
An announcement is a source, not a confirmation. When a couple announces a separation, the announcement date is real and the separation date is not, unless a filing later fixes it. The notes on unverified claims cover the screening window this desk uses before an announced item becomes a listed one.
Where the numbers go
No ring price, filing fee or settlement figure belongs in a timeline unless a document states it. Where a figure helps the reader, give the arithmetic instead.
A ring budget is the metal weight in grams times the day's spot price per gram, plus the stone, plus the setting labor. A filing fee is whatever the clerk's current schedule says, which changes and is published by the county. Substitute your own numbers.
The same rule applies to inflation adjustments on old figures. Say which index you used and which base year, or leave the number out.
Maintaining the list
A timeline ages differently from an article. An article can be reframed as a dated record. A timeline keeps asserting that its last entry is the current one.
Give each row its own checked date, because the rows will not all be reviewed together. Write down what would cause a row to leave the list, and leave a dated line when one does. A timeline that quietly loses an entry looks identical to one that was always shorter.
The approach to corrections covers a deletion as much as an amendment. The running updates page carries the checked dates for the table above.
Common questions
Can a timeline include an announced event with no document?
Yes, if the row says announced and names the outlet and the date. Mixing announced and documented rows without labels lends the format's authority to the weakest entry in it. The main guide to dating timelines sets out the anchor rules in full.
What is the difference between a docket date and a decree date?
The docket date is when the case was filed. The decree date is when the court ended it. They can be more than a year apart, and a timeline that uses one for the other is wrong by that gap.
How do you handle a couple who asks to be removed?
Answer the factual question first. If the row rests on something thin, it should go. If it rests on a first-party statement, removal is a separate editorial call and the request is still worth recording. Acknowledging error promptly is part of the Associated Press news values and principles, not an optional extra.
Does a public figure have less privacy in a relationship?
A public figure has a lower bar for what can be reported about them, which is a legal standard and not a permission slip. It does not make a private relationship a public record, and it does not make an unverified claim checkable.
