The Truth About Wilmer Valderrama's Relationship History

There is perhaps no man in Hollywood who has a more prolific or storied dating past than Wilmer Valderrama. And to be honest, especially in the beginning, it was confusing! Valderrama first got famous when "That '70s Show" became a huge hit. On the show, he played a comedically lonely foreign exchange student nicknamed Fez. However, unlike his character, it soon became clear that Valderrama had no problem attracting women at all — a fact he really leaned into in an infamous interview on "The Howard Stern Show" in 2006. To be fair, it turned out that Valderrama had exaggerated (read: lied) about some of his romantic encounters while speaking to Stern, but it is still true that he dated, or was rumored to have dated, a surprising number of the biggest young stars of the 2000s.

Still, it wasn't all high fives and back slaps. At the time, Valderrama got a decent amount of blowback for the fact that so many of his girlfriends were teenagers when they started dating, while the actor was in his 20s. And at least two of his exes were still minors at the time. Valderrama hasn't dated an actual teenager in a while, so we're glad he appears to have grown out of that.

But that's enough backstory. When it comes to Valderrama's romantic history, we've got a lot of ground to cover, so let's get to it.

If we're going to tell you the truth about who Wilmer Valderrama has and has not dated, let's start with the rumors. Honestly, it's probably faster to talk about who he hasn't been rumored to be with. The fact is, if you Google Valderrama's name and the name of any teen starlet of the aughts, you'll probably find some gossip that the two were an item. That goes for Mischa Barton, Christina Milian, Amanda Bynes, and even his "That '70s Show" costar Mila Kunis.

An Entertainment Weekly interview with Bynes mentions that the two dated, but it doesn't look like either of them has spoken much publicly about the relationship. And while Kunis' name shows up on roundups of Valderrama's exes, neither of them has ever confirmed a romance, either. Then there is the alleged Jennifer Love Hewitt fling. Now, this one is interesting because Valderrama claimed on "The Howard Stern Show" that he and Hewitt had hooked up. However, Hewitt denied this in 2006 and reportedly said, per Fox News, "I was told that we had all these very steamy encounters and I was like, 'Really! Well, I would have loved to have been there!"

When we said Wilmer Valderrama dated (or was rumored to be dating) pretty much every teen idol of the 2000s, we really weren't kidding. And sometimes those rumors never really died. Take, for instance, one non-relationship you might have forgotten about — his link to "Friday Night Lights" star Minka Kelly.

In late 2011, Valderrama and Demi Lovato had been photographed embracing and kissing, per People. However, by April 2012, it looked like Valderrama was cozying up to Kelly. According to another People report, the grinning twosome was spotted walking with their arms around each other during a trip to Sydney. But that September, the Daily Mail published pictures of Valderrama with Lovato that further complicated his dating timeline.    

Fast forward to 2016, when Valderrama and Lovato decided to end their on-again, off-again relationship. Sure enough, the rumor mill started right back up a few months later when Valderrama and Kelly were spotted out together at a Thai eatery, per Us Weekly. But Kelly herself has denied that they dated at all. "He's a good friend to me," she told Power 106 (via E! News). "And it's funny — he's not my ex. We are good friends, and we always have been. We're not exes!" An insider had earlier reported to E! News that they were "getting back together."

If Wilmer Valderrama was lying when he appeared on "The Howard Stern Show" and claimed that he and Jennifer Love Hewitt hooked up, it wouldn't be the only fib he told in the 2006 interview. While Valderrama and Mandy Moore definitely did date at one point, the "NCIS" star told Howard Stern that he had taken her virginity, which Moore said wasn't true.

Speaking to Stern herself on "The Howard Stern Show" over a decade later, Moore said, "I dated him when I was 16 and 17 ... I love him and I still love him, and he's a very good friend, and that's why I was so shocked by it — because not only was it a fib, but it was so unlike him. It was so uncharacteristic."

Moore explained that she was hurt by the lie, especially because virginity is such a personal thing. And when she called Valderrama to confront him about it, he couldn't give her an acceptable answer. For what it's worth, it appears Valderrama did feel a little guilty about what he said, as Stern told Moore that her ex had actually called and asked him to take the episode down. 

To be honest, if Mandy Moore didn't want anything to do with Wilmer Valderrama at all after he lied about having sex with her on a national radio show — we really wouldn't blame her. But for whatever reason, it doesn't look like she dropped him as a pal at all. In fact, nearly 20 years after they broke up, the pair are still buds, with Moore revealing on "The Howard Stern Show" that she had put the incident behind her. She and Valderrama even post about each other on their social media accounts.

For example, in 2018, Moore took to Instagram to share a video of the two at Universal Studios' annual Halloween Horror Nights event, per People. She joked, "This is a tradition right?" Valderrama agreed, saying, "It's a yearly tradition that Mandy and I take the horror of Halloween Horror Nights." And how sweet was it when they both congratulated each other on the births of their kids just days apart in February 2021? On Valderrama's Instagram post announcing the birth of his daughter, Moore wrote, "Look at that gorgeous angel! Congrats to [you] and your beautiful family and can't wait to meet her!!" And on Moore's post announcing the birth of her son, Valderrama commented, "What an amazing gift, you two incredible souls will be inspiring parents!!"

We love it, actually.

Mandy Moore has said that Wilmer Valderrama was her first real boyfriend and that they started dating when she was about 16. Another of Valderrama's famous exes, Lindsay Lohan, has a similar story. The two dated in 2004, the same year that the release of the movie "Mean Girls" was causing Lohan's fame to really skyrocket. According to People, the couple's relationship started when Lohan was 17, but they tried to keep it under the radar until she turned 18.

Because Howard Stern is apparently the go-to guy for spilling the tea about Valderrama's love life, Lohan also opened up to the radio host about her relationship with the actor. During a 2019 appearance on "The Howard Stern Show," Lohan had nothing but positive things to say about her ex, who she said was her first big-name boyfriend. Lohan called him "a good guy" when Stern prompted her for dirt.

It's no secret that 2004 was a rough year for Lohan on the whole, and she even had to be hospitalized for exhaustion and a high fever that October, according to People. One of the high points of her year was landing a guest spot appearing alongside Valderrama on "That '70s Show," and she didn't let her hospitalization prevent her from missing out on the opportunity to work with her boyfriend, per MTV News. 

If Wilmer Valderrama was such "a good guy" during his relationship with Lindsay Lohan, then why did it end? Well, the rumor at the time was that Valderrama left Lohan to pursue Ashlee Simpson, his next alleged girlfriend. In his interview on "The Howard Stern Show" (you know, the one where he bragged about all the women he'd allegedly slept with), Valderrama said this rumor wasn't true — but you can't deny that the breakup was sudden. Per People, they split the same week that the 2004 episode of "That '70s Show" that they appeared in together aired.

Lohan seemed to take their breakup pretty hard. In an appearance on "The Ellen Degeneres Show" soon after the split, she sang a song titled "Over," which she later confirmed was about Valderrama. When she did another "Ellen" interview in 2014, the "Mean Girls" star admitted that she wrote the song immediately after the breakup while she and Valderrama were still living in the same house. She even said that she used to belt it out within his earshot, adding that it "tortured him." Oof, girl. At least she can say she got some good content out of their split.

Lindsay Lohan wasn't the only one of Wilmer Valderrama's girlfriends to write a song about him (what is it about this guy?!). It turns out that Ashlee Simpson, who Valderrama dated after Lohan, wrote the song "Boyfriend" about him and Lohan in 2005. Specifically, the lyric "I didn't steal your boyfriend" referred to the rumors that Ashlee "stole" Valderrama away from Lohan. During a "Plead the Fifth" segment on a 2018 episode of "Watch What Happens Live," host Andy Cohen pressed Ashlee to reveal whether the song really was about Valderrama and Lohan. Eventually, she copped to it. "Yeah, I hung out with him first and I wasn't interested in him at that point," she said.

Regardless of whether or not Valderrama left Lohan for Ashlee, the drama started rumors of a feud between the two celebs that kept them together in the headlines for months. The buzz about potential bad blood even extended to Ashlee's older sister, Jessica Simpson, per TMZ. Everyone's reps denied the gossip, but tabloids aren't going to sell themselves.

For all the drama they caused, Wilmer Valderrama's relationships with Ashlee Simpson, Lindsay Lohan, and Mandy Moore were mere blips on the radar compared to his six-year relationship with another pop singer: former Disney star Demi Lovato. This was actually Valderrama's longest relationship as of 2021, even including that of him and his fiancée, Amanda Pacheco.

In their documentary "Simply Complicated" (via Elle), Lovato said it was "love at first sight" when they first laid eyes on Valderrama. They were 17 at the time, and he was 29. "He was like, 'Get away from me,'" they recalled. But when they turned 18, Valderrama's attitude clearly changed. Once Lovato and the "NCIS" actor started dating, their age difference still raised several eyebrows — and people didn't stop talking about them for basically the entire time they were together. 

The relationship ended for good in 2016. "This was an incredibly difficult decision for both of us, but we have realized more than anything that we are better as best friends," they wrote in a joint statement shared on Instagram. Lovato also told Harper's Bazaar that they realized that they needed to focus on themself. "When you get into a relationship with somebody at that young of an age and then you spend six years with somebody, you don't really get to learn about yourself," they said.

Like he has with most of his exes, Wilmer Valderrama has remained on good terms with Demi Lovato. However, they're not exactly close anymore. Lovato told Harper's Bazaar, "I'm really happy for him and I wish him nothing but the best, but we're not in each other's lives, haven't spoken in a long time."

But that doesn't mean there has been no contact or that they stopped caring about one another. TMZ reported that Valderrama was very supportive of Lovato after their drug overdose in 2018, for example, and made regular visits while they were in a rehab facility. As an insider told Us Weekly at the time, "Demi and Wilmer are still in constant communication," adding that they "speak over the phone pretty much every day and see each other often." They've even acted together since their breakup, playing opposite one another in Netflix's animated movie "Charming" in 2021, per Us Weekly. 

It looks like they weren't kidding when they said that they'd "always be supportive of one other." 

In 2020, Wilmer Valderrama made a move that signaled that his days as a Hollywood Lothario were officially over: He got engaged to model Amanda Pacheco. The duo's engagement announcement came not long after they took their relationship public by stepping out together for a couple's shopping trip in April 2019, per Us Weekly. It became evident that the relationship was getting serious when they headed to France together for Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner's wedding two months later. And eight months after they were first spotted together, Valderrama was posting photos of himself down on one knee.

"It's just us now," he captioned the couple's engagement photo on Instagram, adding the date of his proposal: "01-01-2020." His fiancée posted the same photo and caption to her own Instagram, but she added a pic of her giant, pear-shaped diamond engagement ring.

Adorably, "It's just us now" looks like it's the couple's personal catchphrase, as Valderrama has included the words in tons of other gushy Instagram captions about his one-and-only. "Our passports have become diaries that now witness the great adventure we now call OUR life.. here's to keep collecting stamps and making it look easy..." he wrote in a sweet anniversary post, including the hashtag #ItsJustUsNow. Ah, young love!

Wilmer Valderrama and Amanda Pacheco's couple's catchphrase, "It's just us now," now includes a little one, as they welcomed a daughter in February 2021. They made the announcement via coordinated Instagram posts. "Life is an ever evolving journey, and for all those times when our path needs a light.. often angels are sent to show us the way and that we can be more.. straight out of heaven we welcome our first daughter," Valderrama's caption read. 

A month later, the new parents revealed what they had named their daughter: Nakano Oceana Valderrama. Pacheco explained the significance of her unusual name in an Instagram post, writing, "Her name reminds me of the beautiful journey her father and I took that ultimately led us to have this extraordinary human in our arms today."

The couple explained the meaning behind Nakano's name in a little more detail in an interview with People. Valderrama said that they named her after a legendary female samurai, Takeko Nakano, because they wanted a fierce moniker for their little girl. It was also inspired by the couple's personal connection to the country of Japan, which they were visiting when they realized that they were in it for the long haul. "Nakano became something that felt strong, felt unique, felt different," Valderrama said, adding that the name was a way to "commemorate that trip to Japan with our first labor of love."