A spate of high-profile A-list break-ups — from Bollywood to Hollywood — are showing no one is immune from the strains of an unprecedented year, whether your last name is Khan or Kardashian.

These iconic twosomes — Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West — were just two celebrity pairings that announced they were calling it quits.

Celebrity break-ups are hardly a pandemic invention but the timing of some of these is particularly demoralising, as we realise even those who seem to have it all cannot survive this time unscathed. A quick look at the endings playing out in public life this year:

Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao: Headlines are hardly new to Aamir and Kiran, but this one was devastating to their fans. Arguably Bollywood's most measured, yet wildly successful actor, Aamir —also known as Mr Perfectionist — and wife Kiran Rao decided to part ways after 15 years of marriage. They announced their divorce in a joint statement that spoke of their desire to continue to be friends and, of course, to be loving co-parents to their child Azad Rao Khan.

It's a curious twist of fate that Aamir and Kiran are parting in a year that's another landmark for them as a couple, and for Aamir's career — the 20th anniversary of Lagaan. What Lagaan did for Aamir's career is now the stuff of legend — in an interview with Tarun Tejpal at THiNKfest, the actor acknowledged that there were two distinct phases in his cinematic arc: pre-Lagaan and post-Lagaan.

Lagaan, of course, went on to become a cult film in the Indian cinematic landscape, and was also the country's official Oscar nominee, but for Aamir it set in motion another landmark phase of his life, this one personal; it was on the set of Lagaan, a project on which Kiran was an Assistant Director, that the couple first met. Four years later, on December 28, 2005, they were married.

But it was perhaps the sense that this was a marriage of true creative partners and equals that has given their fans such a sense of loss at their split: in the same interview with Tarun Tejpal, for instance, Aamir recounted that his decision to work in the also now iconic Delhi Belly was purely the gut instinct and conviction of his wife, who read the script and was so captivated, she insisted he give it a read and take up the project.

For an actor as notoriously closed as Aamir Khan, the respect and reliance he placed on his wife's judgement was no secret, and gave fans the hope that this was a twosome bound together forever. Reality, unfortunately, is often written in the language of disappointment.

If there's a powerhouse divorce that could make the Khan and Rao split sound insignificant, thought, it's got to be the Bill and Melinda.

So incredibly powerful are the duo that news of their decision to split shook not only their families, their friends and the world's gossip media, it moved stock markets and put a stunning array of organisations, small and large, on tentative, hesitant ground.

But then being the richest man in the world most days of the week, founder not just of one of the largest tech empires but also one of the world's most sprawling philantropy organisations, means you don't read the news, you often are the news. So when on May 3rd, after 27 years of marriage, Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates decided to announce their separation, they did so on his official Twitter handle, even reportedly timing it for after close of trading hours on the markets. "After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage," Gates tweeted. "We no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives."

But while this was big news, it was apparently not entirely new. Melinda, reports say, had been considering the divorce since the year 2019, after she learnt about the ties of her husband with financier Jeffrey Epstein, convicted of sexual offences in July that year. The couple finally made their decision official right in the midst of the pandemic that has seen Gates involved heavily in funding multiple vaccine programs. There's no foolproof protection against the D-word, though, it is clear.

As those other pop culture superstars found out.

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West were, arguably, the biggest, boldest, brashest billionaire couple of Hollywood — but none of that bluster was enough to keep the duo together. The couple, whose wedding 7 years ago was the biggest event of the year, have had some acrimonious — read, Twitter — words in recent times, and rumours of their imminent separation have been doing the rounds since January this year, but that didn't stop an outpouring of unhappiness from fans when the cultural phenomenon that was KimYe finally announced the split. The couple shares four children together; had the split not occurred, it's safe to say a Kim-and-Kanye version of Keeping Up With the Kardashians couldn't have been too far behind as the kids got older.

Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez: And then there's the beautiful twosome of Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez who, despite their engagement in 2019, and being together for another two years prior, never made it to the altar. The gorgeous duo announced in April 2021 that they were no longer engaged, and that they are now just friends. The former couple also said that they would continue working together and would support each other's businesses and projects as they had always done.

Tarun Tejpal says “sorrow must not be cultivated: it is a poor lifestyle choice.” Tarun J Tejpal is a journalist, publisher, and novelist. In a 26-year career, he has been an editor with the India Today and the Indian Express groups, and the managing editor of Outlook, India’s premier newsmagazine. In March 2000, Tarun Tejpal started Tehelka, a news organisation that has earned a global reputation for its aggressive public interest journalism. Tarun J Tejpal is a Founder of India Ink, the publishing house that published, among others, Booker-award winning The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. Also you can check Tarun Tejpal.