Amid the frenzy surrounding Twilight and in the years after the franchise’s debut, there was an absolute obsession around actors Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. The pair had lead roles in the film and fell in love in real life.

Though they tried to keep their relationship out of the public eye as much as possible, fans were absolutely enamored with them. Unfortunately, it all came crashing down in 2012, when Stewart was seen kissing another man. The relationship never recovered.

However, in the years since, the Charlie’s Angels actor has explained how she got caught up in the cheating scandal.

Kristen Stewart says she wanted to marry Robert Pattinson

Though they’ve been broken up for nearly a decade, Stewart now says she would have happily married Pattinson had they gotten to that stage. “We were together for years; that was my first [love],” Stewart explained on The Howard Stern Show in 2019. However, she does acknowledge the intense pressure they were both under at such a young age.

“You deprive yourself of so many experiences,” she explained. “We didn’t walk down the street holding hands because we were like, ‘We don’t wanna give it to ’em.’ But then, we didn’t get to walk down the street holding hands, and it sucked.”

Kristen Stewart cheated on Robert Pattinson with married director Rupert Sanders

Since the Twilight stars had been linked since 2008 and it was reported that the Harry Potter star was looking to propose to Stewart, fans were stunned when photos of the actor locking lips with her Snow White and the Huntsman director leaked in 2012.

Sanders called the affair a “momentary lapse” while Stewart publically apologized to Pattinson. In the end, the actor insists it was just a kiss, but she felt publically bludgeoned by the media. “We lived in a different time then, you know what I mean? I feel like the slut-shaming that went down was so absurd,” she told Howard Stern.

In the end, the Twilight stars split as did Sanders and his wife.

Kristen Stewart revealed why she cheated on Robert Pattinson

It turns out that Stewart had no true reason for cheating on Pattinson with Sanders other than that she was going through a self-destructive moment in her life. Three years after the affair and the demise of her relationship with The Batman actor, Stewart opened up about what went down.

“I lit my universe on fire, and I watched it burn,” she told Marie Claire in 2015. “Speaking very candidly, it was a really traumatic period in my early 20s that kick-started something in me that was a bit more feral.”

Though the scandal was the nail in the coffin for her relationship, the Happiest Season actor explained why the media firestorm and the frenzy surrounding her relationship with Pattinson made her a stronger person. She explained,