Talk about awkward! While most people can avoid their exes after breaking up, Kaley Cuoco had to simulate lovemaking with former beau Johnny Galecki for The Big Bang Theory.
During a recent episode of Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast, Cuoco said that the former couple had to film sex scenes not long after calling it quits in 2009.
“When we broke up, obviously, it was a little sensitive for a minute, but I remember those weeks that [cocreator] Chuck [Lorre] had written these episodes where all of a sudden our characters were, like, sleeping together every other second,” the 34-year-old actress said on Monday, November 9. “Johnny and I talk about it, and I think [Chuck] did that on purpose just to f–k with us.”
Cuoco added, “If I was with him, I would ask him because that came out of nowhere. All of a sudden, these characters were all up on each other.”
The Flight Attendant star’s relationship with Galecki, 45, began at the start of the CBS sitcom in 2007 and ended in 2009. “We dated really early on for almost two years. When we did the pilot, I was crushing so hard on Galecki, but he had a girlfriend,” she explained.
“We got together and just fell mad for each other for two years, but then we broke up,” she continued. “Luckily, Johnny and I came out of it so brilliantly and we’re closer today than we ever were.”
On The Big Bang Theory, Cuoco and Galecki played Penny and Leonard, respectively, from September 2007 to May 2019. The pair’s characters dated off and on throughout the show before getting married in the season 9 premiere.
In 2013, Galecki explained that he didn’t want his former romance with Cuoco to be a distraction for fans watching Penny and Leonard’s love story unfold on the series.
“We’re dear friends, still. Kaley’s not just an ex, she’s a part of my life. I just don’t like to speak about it,” he told CBS! Watch magazine at the time. “Not because I’m trying to be enigmatic; I just worry that it will conflict with people’s acceptance of Leonard and Penny. I get the curiosity, but I don’t want to distract from the story.”
Though Cuoco and Galecki didn’t work out in real life, the former duo still found happiness in love. The 8 Simple Rules alum married equestrian Karl Cook in 2018, while the Roseanne alum welcomed a son, Avery, with girlfriend Alaina Meyer in 2019.
