Celebrities Who Were Childhood Best Friends: Photos (2025)

Celebrities like Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, or Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire were childhood pals way before becoming major stars.Affleck and Damon both grew up in Massachusetts and proceeded to climb the entertainment ladder side by side throughout their decades-long friendship. In March 2020, the Argo star joked that his success as a child star inspired Damon to act as well.Jonah Hill and Adam Levine, on the other hand, have their parents to thank for their close bond. “Our dads met in the principal’s office in junior high,” the 22 Jump Street actor told Howard Stern in 2014. The Los Angeles natives remained close throughout their careers, with Hill serving as the officiant at Levine’s July 2014 nuptials to Behati Prinsloo.Hill’s sister, Beanie Feldstein, is also a master of turning school friends into lifelong companions. After meeting Ben Platt in middle school at a bat mitzvah when they were 14, the Lady Bird actress and the Dear Evan Hansen star’s careers skyrocketed almost in tandem.Scroll down to see what other stars were pals in their youth:

Foster reminisced on her and Hudson’s 30-year friendship, which began in the 9th grade. Foster previously noted that she and Hudson had “been friends since high school” in a February 2025 interview with E! News.

“How the hell am I supposed to go through 30 years of pictures and videos to do a bday post that fully encompasses this woman,” Foster wrote via her Instagram Story in April 2025 to celebrate Hudson’s 46th birthday. “Luckily my computer was stolen in Vegas years ago and none of my photos were backed up.”

Foster still managed to share several photos of Foster and Hudson together, including one of them on horseback in Aspen. “Aspen usually has been a thorn in our relationship since that’s where she got married at 21 years old and didn’t invite me,” Foster wrote. “I’m still not over it.”

“Happy bday to the girl who I met in 9th grade who literally took me under her wing, snuck me off campus when I wasn’t allowed, brought me into her family, exposed me to such incredible things I never would have been exposed to, included me in her biggest moments (except her wedding), showed up and supported mine, and too much more to write,” she wrote. “I love you.”

Foster gushed over her friendship with Hudson in an exclusive interview with Us Weekly in 2018. “The beauty of being friends with Kate and Nicole [Richie] is that we’ve all been friends since we were little,” she explained. “We’ve been friends with Nicole since we were in elementary school and friends with Kate since high school.”

She added, “Who knows if we met today if we’d be friends, but those are friendships that have to last because they’ve already lasted so long and we all grew up together.”

The Booksmart actress met Platt at a bat mitzvah as children, but they didn’t become best friends until they attended the same high school. "The second week of school he got his braces off, and he texted me like 'I got my braces off,' and I left my class to come see his teeth," Feldstein told Seth Meyers in 2017. "I'm such a goody-goody and I love school, so he was like, 'I must mean a lot to you.'" The pair have remained close, dressing up in matching Halloween costumes, traveling the globe together and sharing heartfelt Instagram posts for each other’s birthdays.

The actors became pals while growing up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They met when Damon was 10 and Affleck was 8 and never looked back. The pair have worked together on multiple film projects including, School Ties, The Battle of Shaker Heights and Field of Dreams. When writing their Oscar-winning screenplay for 1997’s Good Will Hunting, the duo lived together. Damon spoke about his longtime friendship with Affleck in 2016, telling Entertainment Tonight, “I’ve known him for 35 years, and we grew up together. We were both in love with the same thing — acting and filmmaking. I think we fed on each other’s obsession during really formative, important years and that bonded us for life.”

Before starring on The Office together for nine seasons, Krasinski and Novak were childhood pals. "John Krasinski and I have known each other our whole lives in the weirdest, most coincidental way," Novak said on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in April 2014. "We played Little League together." The duo later played coworkers, Jim Halpert and Ryan Howard, from 2005 to 2013 on the NBC comedy.

The High School Musical costars met before they played rivals in the Disney Channel musical film franchise. “We actually worked together a year before in a Sears commercial, and from that day on we were super close,” Tisdale exclusively told Us Weekly in August 2019. “So people don’t really — I think some people know that, but they think it was that movie that brought us together and it really wasn’t.” The two later had their own E! special, Vanessa & Ashley: Inner Circle, in 2013. Hudgens then stood up for Tisdale as a bridesmaid when she married Christopher French the following year.

The Bridesmaids actress and the Goop founder have known each other since elementary school. Their fathers, Dick Rudolph and Bruce Paltrow, met in college and after they both moved to Los Angeles their daughters became school friends. Gwyneth opened up about the duo’s bond when she hosted Saturday Night Live in 2001. "I hosted once before, but this week has been really extra-special to me because one of my best friends is on the show now, and I'm so proud of her," she said in her monologue. "We've known each other since we were 7 years old, and she's super-funny and talented, and I'm so glad she's in the cast. Her name is Maya Rudolph."

Gosling and Timberlake first met while starring on the Mickey Mouse Club in their tween years. In fact, when Gosling first moved to Orlando, Florida, in the early 90s, to appear on The All New Mickey Mouse Club, he lived with Timberlake. The Man of the Woods singer's mom, Lynn, signed on to be Gosling's legal guardian for six months while his own mother, Donna, returned to Canada for work.

Kardashian reminded everyone that she was buddies with fellow Hollywood kid Richie during their teen years by sharing a throwback photo via Instagram. The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star posted a picture of the pals with the caption, "#ThrowbackThursday @nicolerichie and I being oh so cool at 13 years old." The girls grew up near one another, running in the same circles with powerful dads Lionel Richie and Robert Kardashian.

Maguire and DiCaprio were buddies long before starring in The Great Gatsby together. During an interview with Huffington Post, DiCaprio revealed, "After I met Tobey at an audition, I felt like I wanted this guy to be my friend. I remember driving back from school and he was doing Hot Rod Brown Class Clown with Whoopi Goldberg outside Hollywood High. It was a high school. And I jumped out of my car in the middle of the scene, as they were shooting, practically. I was like, `Tobey! Tobey! Tobey! Give me your number.' He was like, `Yeah, who are you again?'"

Lovato and Gomez met on the set of Barney & Friends as kid actors in the late 90s and became fast pals. During an interview with Seventeen magazine in January 2014, Gomez revealed despite a falling out while Lovato was in rehab in 2010, they remain close friends. "I've known her since we were 7, and we did fall apart for a while. She was going through things and I was so young and it was confusing. I processed it saying, 'OK, I don't understand what she's going through so I'm just going to do this.' I don't think it was fair, and I'm so happy that I have her back in my life now."

Barrymore and Love bonded during their party girl phases. The musician revealed to TimesOnline that she met the Never Been Kissed actress "in a bathroom, smoking. I was 19 and she was like 8." They remained such good pals, Barrymore was even crowned the godmother of Love and her late husband Kurt Cobain's daughter, Frances Bean.

Hill and Levine have been pals way before they became household names. In an interview with Playboy, theWolf of Wall Street actor said growing up, "Adam was like family, and he still is... I don't see him as a rock star. He's just a great person to me... Adam has been there for me and my family, and his family has been there for my family more than anyone else. That guy has all my love and respect forever." When the Maroon 5 frontman married Prinsloo in July 2014, Hill was the officiant.

Hudson and Tyler grew up running in the same famous circle thanks to their parents, Goldie Hawn and Steven Tyler, but they become super close while attending the same high school together, Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences in the 1990s. The BFFs then went on to star in Dr. T & the Women together, where they shared an onscreen kiss!

These two Aussie A-listers have been friends since high school. "Naomi Watts and I are very, very good friends and have maintained that through many things…I think that's really rare, particularly for actresses, and I take a lot of pride in that," Kidman told the Telegraph. "We share a naughty wicked sense of humor," Watts told Jane magazine.

These two socialites go way back. After growing up together in the posh Bel-Air neighborhood, Richie and Hilton then documented their wild early years on reality show The Simple Life. Despite not remaining as close as they once were, Richie said in 2014 on Watch What Happens Live, "Paris is somebody that's been in my life since day one. I haven't spoken to her in a while technically, but, if you really want to get into it, my view of a friendship is someone that you don't necessarily have to talk to you every day."

Diaz and the rapper shared the same hallways in high school at Long Beach Polytechnic High School. The Sex Tape actress once admitted on Lopez Tonight, "I'm pretty sure I bought weed from him!"

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