Everything Kaley Cuoco Has Said About Love, Relationships, Heartbreak and Divorce

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Everything Kaley Cuoco Has Said About Love, Relationships, Heartbreak and Divorce

Doing it her way! Kaley Cuoco isn’t letting her past romances affect how she approaches love — but she has learned a few lessons from her two failed marriages. Cuoco was briefly engaged to Josh Resnik in 2011. After the couple called it quits, the 8 Simple Rules alum found love with Ryan Sweeting. Cuoco surprised fans when she and Sweeting tied the knot on New Year’s Eve in December 2013 just three months after they got engaged. The pair’s marriage was short-lived with the twosome calling it quits in September 2015. Six months later, Cuoco was again in love, this time with equestrian Karl Cook. Despite thinking she would never walk down the aisle again after her first divorce, the Flight Attendant star wed Cook in June 2018. Their marriage wasn’t forever, with Cuoco splitting from Cook in September 2021. She later moved on with now-fiancé Tom Pelphrey in 2022. The pair welcomed daughter Matilda in March 2023. Scroll down for Cuoco’s best quotes about love, romance and breakups:

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Everything Kaley Cuoco Has Said About Love, Relationships, Heartbreak and Divorce

Doing it her way! Kaley Cuoco isn’t letting her past romances affect how she approaches love — but she has learned a few lessons from her two failed marriages. Cuoco was briefly engaged to Josh Resnik in 2011. After the couple called it quits, the 8 Simple Rules alum found love with Ryan Sweeting. Cuoco surprised fans when she and Sweeting tied the knot on New Year’s Eve in December 2013 just three months after they got engaged. The pair’s marriage was short-lived with the twosome calling it quits in September 2015. Six months later, Cuoco was again in love, this time with equestrian Karl Cook. Despite thinking she would never walk down the aisle again after her first divorce, the Flight Attendant star wed Cook in June 2018. Their marriage wasn’t forever, with Cuoco splitting from Cook in September 2021. She later moved on with now-fiancé Tom Pelphrey in 2022. The pair welcomed daughter Matilda in March 2023. Scroll down for Cuoco’s best quotes about love, romance and breakups:

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Top of Her Checklist

The Charmed alum gushed over then-boyfriend Cook to Us in September 2017, revealing why she fell for him. “He’s a real person and I think the big deal was knowing how much he loves dogs and horses — that’s always on my checklist,” she exclusively told Us. “‘Must love dogs’ is number one and he checked that off quite quickly and I fell very hard.”

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Major Turnoff

Cuoco revealed during an April 2018 episode of Vogue’s “Sad Hot Girls” video series that she once dumped a “famous” boyfriend for being a bad tipper. In the story, the Hop star referred to the mystery man as “John” to not publicly call him out for his bad behavior. “Everyone that met him loved him, too, and we looked cute together,” Cuoco recalled.

She noted that after a “great dinner,” her then-boyfriend took out his phone to use the calculator function to determine what to tip. “I start to get a little bit hot, because I think I’m realizing what’s happening. He’s multiplying like an eight percent tip. Oh, my God, he’s cheap. He’s cheap. He’s a bad tipper.”

The Monster Allergy alum explained that the same thing kept happening when they’d go out, leading her to go back to a restaurant one time and tip a server separately because she felt so “horrified” by the man’s cheapness.

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'Marriage' Was Tainted

“I honestly thought I wouldn’t get married again. My ex ruined that word for me,” the Last Ride actress told Cosmopolitan in its May 2018 issue speaking about Sweeting. “I married someone the first time who completely changed. The person I ended up with was not the person I originally met. And that wasn’t my fault — that was his.”

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Working With an Ex

“We weren’t weird, which is what was weird,” Cuoco told Haute Living Los Angeles in May 2019 of her post-split dynamic with Big Bang Theory costar Galecki. “It was a mutual breakup, and you can rarely say that. Johnny and I were friends first, then obviously we dated.”

The duo, who split in 2009 after two years together, continued to play love interests Penny and Leonard, on the CBS comedy until 2019, didn’t let their romantic past dictate their friendship.

“When we broke up, it was funny because that was when our relationship on the show was hot and heavy. There were a lot of bed scenes,” she explained. “We were a little like, ‘We were trying to end the relationship and it kept falling back in.’ We got over it really fast, and we’re closer than ever now. It could have gone either way, and I was really proud of us.”

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Living Solo

“Even when Karl and I met, and I knew I was totally in love with him and we wanted to get married, we both really like our own lives and we actually like our own couches,” Cuoco confessed on a November 2019 episode of the “Brad Behavior” podcast. “He travels all over and he’s got a ranch and horses, and he also loves his alone time. We’re very similar like that, but we share the same passion, which are the animals, and he lets me be me.”

The Harley Quinn alum and the equestrian eventually moved into their joint home in early 2020, nearly two years after tying the knot.

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No Instant Connection

Finding The One takes time, according to Cuoco, who exclusively told Us in March 2020 that things didn’t click right away between her and now ex-husband Cook. “I don’t think it was love at first sight for us,” she said at the time. “We had met and it was like a weird meeting. It kind of happened later.”

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Six-Second Marriage

The Burning Bodhi actress recalled her whirlwind romance with Sweeting, which ended in 2015 after 21 months of marriage, noting it felt like a blimp in time.

“Oh, my God, I don’t remember my life before this show! And I went through a divorce on the show,” Cuoco told Variety in February 2021, referencing her time on The Big Bang Theory and marriage to the former tennis pro. She then joked that she and Sweeting “got married in, like, six seconds.”

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It’s OK to Not Be OK

The Wedding Ringer star got real in November 2021 about being alone on her first birthday following her split from Cook. “Sometimes it’s OK to not feel totally OK. Even on ur bday,” she wrote via her Instagram Story.

The California native noted that while she was now single, she had a lot of people to be thankful for while celebrating her big day. “I have the greatest fam and friends there ever was,” she continued.

Cuoco then turned to her beloved animals for support amid the split. “A quick stop by the barn for some magical pony kisses always helps,” she added.

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No More Marriage

“I will never get married again. I would love to have a long-lasting relationship or a partnership. But I will never get married again,” Cuoco vowed during an April 2022 interview with Glamour. “Absolutely not. You can literally put that on the cover.”

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Love Is Still on the Menu

“I believe in love because I’ve had incredible relationships. I know that they’re out there. I like being someone’s partner and having that companionship,” the Wasted actress told Glamour in its April 2022 cover story. “We’ve all been there where you think, ‘Oh my God, I’m never going to meet someone else.’ And you do. There are great people that come into your life and they leave your life. And there are reasons for all of it.”

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Her Biggest Struggles

"Going through my divorce, it was really a super dark time. I just didn’t know how to deal with it," Cuoco told Variety in August 2022. "I was throwing myself into work to deny my depression, and how upset I was. Unfortunately, the character was so depressed that it wasn’t helping me! I was really, really, really struggling. A lot of tears."

According to the actress, the challenges in her personal life started to create issues on set as well. "One month in[to filming], I had an intervention on myself in my trailer — all my producers were in there," she recalled. "It was interesting to say that out loud. And to have everyone be like, 'Yes, we want to help!' I’m a working woman, and so independent, and I really take pride in being able to do everything. Well, this time, I literally couldn’t."

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Moving On After Divorce

Cuoco recalled “sobbing” on the floor in the home she shared with Cook after their split.

“That is the lowest point of my life I ever had. I couldn’t get up. I was so depressed. I thought I blew up my life,” she said during her February 2026 appearance on Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast.

Amid her struggles, Cuoco said her manager tried to set her up with Pelphrey. She initially refused to meet him, but her feelings changed after she came across his Instagram page. 

“So I scan [his Instagram] and I get this feeling that I’m going to spend my life with him. I texted my best friend Zosha in that moment,” she explained. “She still has it and I said, ‘This is crazy, but I have to put it in writing. I think I’m going to meet the man I’m going to spend my life with.’ She goes, ‘What do you mean?’ I’m like, ‘Just keep this text.’ And it was Tom.”