Celebrities date and marry non-famous people all the time, but sometimes, their partners mistake them for a fellow "normie." Other times, however, celebs are the ones mistaking their famous partner for an average Joe.
Here are 13 celebs whose partners didn't know they were famous:
1. Tom Pelphrey didn't realize that his partner Kaley Cuoco starred in The Big Bang Theory — which was extremely popular, long-running, and multi-award winning — until his mom's partner kept calling her by her character's name. He actually "hadn't seen Kaley in anything" because he "was living in upstate New York, on a dirt road, in the middle of the woods, without much Wi-Fi" before they met.
He told W magazine, "When I first brought Kaley to New Jersey to meet my family and friends, my mom's partner — who apparently was a Big Bang Theory fan — was there, and he kept calling her Penny. I had no clue what was going on. So I pulled Kaley aside, like, 'I'm sorry, I don't understand what's happening. Why does he keep calling you Penny?' She's like, 'That's my character in The Big Bang Theory.' I was completely unaware. I've watched a few episodes with her since, and, obviously, she's fantastic."
2. When Kristen Bell first met her husband Dax Shepard at a mutual friend's birthday dinner, he'd recently risen to fame on Punk'd. However, she didn't know who he was and wondered, "Is that one of the guys from Jackass or something?"
On Sunday TODAY with Willie Geist, she said, "The only thing I remember is that he talked so much...There were no sparks whatsoever...Two weeks later, we both met at a hockey game...we saw each other...started to flirt. Then a day after that, I get a text that says, 'Hi, my name is Dax. I violated your privacy and got your number from Shauna [Robertson]. How do you feel about that?' And I was like, 'Excuse me? You sound stimulating.'"
3. While Michael Cera was promoting Arrested Development in Paris, he met his wife Nadine in a bar. She actually "thought [he] was Swedish, until [they] spoke."
He told the Guardian, "I didn't know if she would speak English, and if we would even have a chance to talk, and it was very lucky that she did because we wouldn't have a son, we wouldn't have a relationship."
4. Rapper Cordae didn't know that his girlfriend Naomi Osaka was a huge tennis star when they started dating.
5. When NFL player Jonathan Owens first met his wife, Simone Biles, he "honestly didn’t know who she was" because he "never really watched gymnastics before [he] first started talking to her."
On Simone's Facebook Watch docuseries, he said, "That's how I would tell people, and they're like, 'Simone Biles?! You for real, the gymnast?!' And I'm like, 'Man, she's good like that?!' Like I didn't [know]."
They first met on the dating app Raya.
6. Before going on a blind date with his wife Lena Dunham, musician Luis Felber "had to Google" her.
He told The Sunday Times, "Then I went on her Instagram, and I saw her dancing to a song called 'Red Hot Pussy' in her garden in LA. Lena puts herself out there in a really special way. That was all I had to go on at the time."
7. When Danielle Jonas first met her husband Kevin while on a family vacation in the Bahamas in 2007, she "didn’t know who the Jonas Brothers were."
His brother Joe actually hit on her first.
8. The first time Camila Alves met Matthew McConaughey was at a bar, but she didn't recognize him because, at the time, he "had a really long beard, and he had this rasta hat."
However, she realized who he was after spotting his close friend at the time.
She told Access Hollywood, "Lance [Armstrong] came to talk to me. You knew they were always together, so I'm like, OK, I'm outta here. I'm going to the other side of the room!"
9. When Lily Allen matched with her husband David Harbour on Raya, she "thought he was just like a sexy policeman from a reality TV show."
On the Jonathan Ross Show, she said, "He was wearing a policeman's uniform. It was a still from Stranger Things. I'd never seen Stranger Things."
10. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian was only "98 percent sure" who his wife Serena Williams was when they met at a hotel in Rome. She, however, had no idea who he was or what Reddit was, but she lied and said she'd been on the social media site that morning.
At the time, Alexis was also super unfamiliar with the sport that made Serena famous.
He told Vanity Fair, "[I had] never watched a match on television or in real life. It was literally the sport — even if ESPN was announcing tennis updates, I would just zone out...I really had no respect for tennis."
11. When attorney Keith Lieberthal was introduced to his wife Julianna Marguilies, he "honestly didn't know who [she] was."
She told People, "I mean, if he had seen my work, he didn't know. He was in law school. I was like, 'There's a couple movies I don't want you to see.'"
12. Alfonso Ribeiro first met his wife, blogger Angela Unkrich, at a hotel in Beverly Hills, and she "didn't know who he was at the time." He told her he was a director.
She told Yahoo Lifestyle, "I was very much in the 'I don't want to date anyone in entertainment.'...I don’t think it was more than 10 minutes [into our first date] that went by, and I was like, huh, he's different than I thought."
13. And finally, when Shaun White and his girlfriend Nina Dobrev went for their first dinner together after both speaking at an event, he "actually didn't know anything about her" and was confused when the restaurant employees wanted their picture with her.
He told People, "I was like, 'What's happening? What's going on?' It was actually really funny."