Top 20 Celebrity Sex And Love Scandals Of 2010

When it came to celebrity scandals, 2010 had its fair share of zingers. From adulterous golfers to adulterous soccer players to adulterous motorcycle builders... well, a lot of famous people cheated. But it wasn't all sordid hookups, secret babies and embarrassing fake-relationship publicity stunts. There was also the creepiest Bachelor ever! Join us as we count down the 20 most scandalous celebrity love and sex stories of 2010.

20. Two Words: Courtney Love

The Hole frontwoman did her level best to stay in the headlines this year, reportedly dating Uma Thurman's ex, hotelier Andre Balasz; perhaps dabbling in lesbianism with Kate Moss; and then telling Howard Stern that she used to sleep with Gavin Rossdale, possibly making Gwen Stefani rip her platinum hair out by its precarious roots.

19. Ashton Kutcher Allegedly Cheats On Demi Moore

Because the 15-year age difference was old news, this year Ashton and Demi gave the tabloids fresh dirt to dish. In September, Star alleged that Ashton had been making out with a young blond woman at a restaurant. A couple weeks later the same magazine published a tell-all from a young lady who said Ashton gave her his number while out bowling with Demi, and later had sex with her at his house while Demi was away. The Kutchmoores countered the rumors by Tweeting obsessively about one another. 

18. Gary Coleman's Estranged Wife Pulls The Plug

Diminutive former TV star Gary Coleman was hospitalized in May after a head injury, slipped into a coma and then died when his estranged wife, Shannon Price, decided to remove life support. Questions abounded about the Coleman-Price marriage, their secret divorce and what the truth was about those allegations of domestic abuse. In the end, though, the situation was just too sad for words.

17. Cristiano Ronaldo's Secret Baby

The highest-paid soccer player in the world didn't have the best World Cup this year, with his Portugal team exiting in the Round of 16 (meaning they did just as well as the U.S. squad!), but he had another reason to celebrate: the 25-year-old unexpectedly became a (single) father. On July 3, he announced the birth of his son, Cristiano Ronaldo Jr. The tot's mother, according to some none-too-reputable sources, is an American waitress whose one-night stand with C-Ron earned her 10 million pounds (and a lifetime of regrets?) for handing over her baby to the ball player. And here we are, five months later, and still not a single picture of Cris holding that baby! The paparazzi in Spain are seriously siesta-ing on the job.

More Juicy Content From YourTango:
• YourTango’s Best Celebrity News And Gossip
• Top 5 Weirdest Celebrity Fetishes
• 6 Sex Tape Celebrities

16. Bret Michaels Comes Between Tish And Billy Ray Cyrus?

In November, Miley Cyrus's parents announced that they were divorcing after 17 years of marriage, just as Us Weekly squealed that the reason for the split was Tish Cyrus spending some time on the Rock of Love Bus. We have no idea if that's the real reason they broke up, but it makes us laugh because Tish and Bret are a couple made in hair-extensions heaven. Did Bret Michaels Break Up Miley Cyrus' Parents?

15. Kate Winslet And Sam Mendes Divorce

Britain's highest-brow filmmaking couple announced their separation in March after nearly seven years of marriage, and their split broke our hearts. Someone said that The Town star Rebecca Hall might have come between them, and someone else said maybe Sam was seeing Rachel Weisz who, though we didn't know it, had already split up with Darren Aronofsky! And then the film buffs committed mass suicide because there is no such thing as true love. Is There Really A Best Actress Oscar Curse?

14. Heidi And Spencer's Fake Divorce

This year, Heidi turned into a living Barbie doll, Spencer spent all of his money on magic crystals and got arrested in Costa Rico, and the couple pretended to get divorced just so people would write things on the Internet about them! (They succeeded, clearly.)

13. Tiki Barber Leaves His Pregnant Wife For An NBC Intern

The former NFL star left his wife while she was eight months pregnant with twins for a 23-year-old named Traci. In May, Ginny banned Tiki from the delivery room when she gave birth to the two girls. Lucky for him, his offenses have been overshadowed by a certain aging, cellphone-loving quarterback.  

12. Bachelor Jake And Vienna Freak Out On TV

News flash: The Bachelor is still popular, despite batting .071 at making its male stars not bachelors. The most recent season, which spawned both a Dancing With the Stars contestant (which is your answer to the trivia question "How is The Bachelor like Sarah Palin?") and the meta-show Bachelor Pad, resulted in the angriest, most passive-aggressive reunion show ever in which Jake Pavelka, the frequently shirtless airline pilot, and his forever-and-never love, Vienna Girardi, snapped at each other like a pair of starving Dobermans. While they didn't succeed at making the case for themselves as viable romantic partners, they certainly earned ABC some big Monday-night ratings.

11. Did Justin Timberlake Cheat On Jessica Biel With Olivia Munn?

For almost four years now, Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel have been having what is in reality a low-key and rather normal-seeming relationship, but what the tabloids insist is a roller coaster of emotion fraught with jealousy, ultimatums and suppressed rage. In October, Us Weekly wrote that Justin and Daily-Show-correspondent Olivia Munn had a fling in New York while he was in town promoting The Social Network. We don't know if this is true but, frankly, we're hoping Jessica cheats on him, if only so he'll get his skinny Tennessee butt back in the studio and make another awesome album.

10. Courteney Cox And David Arquette Break Up

Courteney Cox and David Arquette were among this year's crop of long-term relationship breakups, and while we were sad at the beginning, as David went on to overshare about his and Courteney's sex life... well, we began to sympathize with what Courteney put up with for the last 14 years.

9. LeAnn Rimes And Eddie Cibrian Break Up Their Marriages

Rimes left her husband for her Lifetime movie co-star Cibrian, who was also married (making their lives much like the plot of a potential future Lifetime movie). The couple is still together, and they say they have no regrets. Shape magazine, however, had regrets after their readers objected to "husband-stealer" Rimes appearing on its cover.

8. John Edwards Is A Bad Man

YOU GUYS. John Edwards was almost president! (Kind of.) Knowing what we know now—that he allegedly used campaign money to support his pregnant mistress while his wife was battling cancer; that he talked a campaign worker into claiming paternity of his illegitimate daughter; that he might have made a sex tape with Rielle while she was pregnant—whew, we dodged a bullet there! (Though, considering our country's past leaders, maybe he was just trying to act the part.) Elizabeth Edwards Fears Leaving Kids With John

7. Al And Tipper Gore Divorce Amid Allegations Of Cheating

Al and Tipper Gore split after four decades of marriage this year, and almost immediately rumors flew that Al had gotten a little too close to his fellow environmentalist Laurie David, who is divorced from curmudgeonly Curb Your Enthusiasm creator Larry. Both Laurie and Al denied the reports, but then he was accused of groping some masseuses—one even said he acted like a "crazed sex poodle," which is a new thing we've never heard of (and being YourTango writers, we've heard quite a lot). The sexual harassment case was dismissed in July due to a lack of evidence, which hopefully means there are no Polaroids that the American Kennel Club would be interested in.

6. Mel Gibson Goes Even Crazier

Last year, Mel Gibson welcomed his eighth child. This year, he split up with his baby mama after physically abusing her, and went on to repeatedly threaten her with all sorts of horrible things, all of which we got to hear, and this has thoroughly spoiled our enjoyment of Chicken Run. Are you proud of yourself, Melvin?

5. Brett Favre Is A Sexter, Too

This fall, we learned that while playing for the Jets two years ago, Brett made it his business to text photos of his anatomy to a woman named Jenn Sterger, who worked for the team. There were also voicemails in which he insisted that Jenn might enjoy seeing Little Brett in a less digital format. Now the NFL is investigating, because amateur pornography is much more important than chronic brain injuries. 

4. Dennis Hopper's Deathbed Divorce

Sixties counterculture film icon Dennis Hopper died of prostate cancer this year, but before he did, he tried to divorce his fifth wife so she wouldn't get all his money. It was a classy last act from a complicated man. Dennis and his wife of 14 years, Victoria Duffy, have a 7-year-old daughter; he also has three children from his previous marriages, aged 48, 36 and 20. Dennis filed for divorce from Victoria in January, and also got a restraining order against her. A court ruled in April that she could continue living on his property, and he was ordered to pay spousal and child support. Dennis passed away in May, and Victoria had to settle for only 25 percent of his life insurance payout. Poor gal. 

3. Charlie. Sheen.

The saga of Charlie Sheen continued in 2010, after he and wife Brooke Mueller closed out 2009 with a rageful holiday in Colorado. He seemed OK for a while, but then was back to his abusive ways in October when he locked a woman named Capri Anderson in the bathroom of his Plaza Hotel room during a drug-fueled rampage. Then he did it again a week later. And a week after that, he finally filed for divorce from Brooke. And he is still making more than a million dollars a week for that show where he wears bowling shirts all the time.

2. Tiger's Wood

Even though this story began in 2009, when Tiger Woods crashed his Escalade into a tree and his wife, Elin, "rescued" him by smashing "the back window" of the SUV with a golf club, it really got seamy in 2010, when more and more porn stars and escorts and hostesses and next-door neighbors came forward to say that they, too, had put a tiger in their tanks. Tiger lost a number of sponsorships and spent some time in rehab, but it wasn't enough to save his marriage. Elin decided to quit while she was ahead, divorced Tiger and moved to Sweden with the kids. And Tiger is playing really boring (and not very successful) golf again. It's the circle of gossip, folks.

1. Sandra Bullock Won An Oscar (Oh, And She Divorced Her Cheating Husband)

America's Sweetheart was having the best year of her professional life, winning an Oscar and, unbeknownst to us, becoming a mother for the first time, with the adoption of her New Orleans–born son, Louis, progressing. And then, just as she got that bald golden man in her hands, we learned that Sandra's husband, West Coast Choppers owner Jesse James, had been having a number of sordid affairs, including one with a fetish model named Michelle "Bombshell" McGee, who had some gross Nazi-ish tattoos. And the hits just kept on coming. It was all remarkably slimy. Sandra seems to be doing OK now. She divorced Jesse, got a restraining order against an old stalker and has an adorable new son. We're rooting for her.