17 Times Famous Women Gave Really Great Breakup Advice

"Just believe that the heartbreak was a gift in itself. Cry if you have to, but it won't be forever! You will find love again, and it will be even more beautiful! In the meantime enjoy all that YOU are!" —Rihanna, to a fan on Twitter in 2017

"You see a lot of people play this blame game. Blame, blame, blame. You know? And it's a really easy thing to do, and I'm certainly guilty of it. [You have to] look at yourself and go, 'What part of this do I need to own? Which part of this is my responsibility?' And that's the painful work that you have to go through to hopefully get some real life knowledge out of it." —Reese Witherspoon in an inteview with Elle magazine in 2009

"I actually shed tears for the woman I used to be. How sad was I in my ‘please’ and ‘you don’t understand, just give me another chance’ and all that stuff. What I now know is that was my biggest teacher. He was here to show me to myself so I could learn to love myself more. This was the guy who said to me, ‘The problem with you is you think you special.’ And I said, ‘No I’m not. No, I’m not really special.’ Look at me now." —Oprah Winfrey in an interview with Vibe in 2018

"There are many stages of grief. It’s sad, something coming to an end. It cracks you open. When you try to avoid the pain, it creates greater pain. I’m a human being, having a human experience in front of the world. I try really hard to rise above it." —Jennifer Aniston in an interview with Vanity Fair in 2005

"When I was first going through my separation, someone said to me, 'It will take you half as long as you were in the relationship before you'll feel better.' And I wanted to knock them out cold across the table. Because, of course, I was in agony. And the last thing I wanted to think was that I was going to stay that way for a long time. But interestingly enough, it is over four years later — we were together eight years — and I finally feel like, cool. I feel better." —Uma Thurman in an interview with Redbook in 2008

“My best advice for moving on from a relationship is you gotta go all the way through it. If you don’t want to let go yet, keep on calling and getting hung up on. Keep on following him around and getting embarrassed. When you get tired enough, you will evolve, I promise. But you gotta go all the way through it. You know, you gotta get your weave snatched out a couple more times. You gotta keep moving. Go through it. You’ll evolve.” —Erykah Badu on Twitter in 2015

"Hair is so linked to how we feel and everyone goes for something radical after a breakup, but my advice is not to touch your hair. It’s the first thing women do but you’re not in a fit state to make long-term decisions. You’ll have to spend four years growing it out. Buy a lipstick instead. Go and kiss loads of other people, but don’t fucking touch your hair." —Alexa Chung in an interview with Stylist magazine in 2013

“What I don’t mind saying is, it was the first time I ever had my heart broken. I’d always been the one to leave relationships, and I had been in long-term relationships, and it was the one time I really believed this is forever. I’m going to be with this person forever, and I felt safe and I felt we shared so much together, and it was the first time I’ve had my heart broken, and it was in a big way. Because there is no closure. I’ve had a girlfriend who was killed in a car accident. I know what it’s like to lose someone, and that’s a horrible feeling, [but] it’s almost worse to lose someone and know they’re still alive out there, and I don’t understand.” —Ellen DeGeneres in an interview with The Los Angeles Times in 2001

"I think you need to cook that beautiful dinner even when it's just you, wear your favorite outfit, buy yourself some flowers, and celebrate the self love that often gets muddled when we focus on what we don't have." —Meghan Markle on her blog The Tig in 2015

"Time passes, and the more you live your life and create new habits, you get used to not having a text message every morning saying, 'Hello, beautiful. Good morning.' You get used to not calling someone at night to tell them how your day was. You replace these old habits with new habits, like texting your friends in a group chat all day and planning fun dinner parties and going out on adventures with your girlfriends, and then all of a sudden one day you're in London and you realize you've been in the same place as your ex for two weeks and you're fine. And you hope he's fine." —Taylor Swift in an interview with Elle in 2015

"Even though we had an amicable divorce, I think that's still something that you need to mourn. When you get separated from somebody that you actually care about, it is the destruction of a belief system. That is really, really sad." —Jenny Slate in an interview with Vulture in 2017

“I think everyone kind of goes through [heartbreak]. It definitely isn’t a good feeling. I think having surgery is definitely a lot easier — having a pulmonary embolism is definitely a lot easier than a heartbreak.” —Serena Williams in an interview with Piers Morgan in 2012

“People always say that once it goes away, you forget the pain. It’s a cliché of childbirth: you forget the pain. I don’t happen to agree. I remember the pain. What you really forget is love. Divorce seems as if it will last ­forever, and then suddenly, one day, your ­children grow up, move out, and make lives for themselves. The divorce has lasted way longer than the marriage, but finally it’s over. … The point is that for a long time, the fact that I was divorced was the most important thing about me. And now it’s not.” —Nora Ephron in her 2010 book "Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections"

"The one thing I will say is, I'm really afraid of losing myself. And I think if you sit in situations that are unhealthy or you let them linger too long you start to lose yourself. I don't like crying all the time. I don't like being sad. So I'm like, 'How do I get out of this? Because I like being happy.'" —Ciara on "Red Table Talk" in June 2019

“There were two weeks of my life after I found out the truth of my marriage where I was like, ‘OK. All right. I can’t feel this. This is too intense right now.’ I was, like, just eating Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and drinking, and that’s it. … There are two ways you can go: You can either nurture yourself or go destructive. I have gone down the destructive path before, and that didn’t work for me. You dig deep beyond those scars and find that soft tissue again, and you massage and nurture it and bring it to life, little by little, through serving yourself well. I did it through hikes and vitamins and therapy and prayer and good friends.” —Katy Perry in an interview with Marie Claire in 2014

"The truth is, I should be angry, resentful and disillusioned about relationships. But I'm not. Love did not work with that person. But it can work with another." —Eva Longoria in 2010

"Take your broken heart, make it into art." —Carrie Fisher, as told to her friend Meryl Streep