🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
Fans of Netflix film trilogy The Kissing Booth will have been sad to say goodbye to their favorite characters as the final instalment, The Kissing Booth 3, was released earlier in August.
The movie follows couple Noah and Elle, played by Jacob Elordi and Joey King respectively, as they face challenges to their relationship and try to stay together.
Perhaps awkwardly, King and Elordi got together off screen while filming the first movie of the now popular franchise in 2017, before ending their romantic relationship a little over a year later.
Why Did Joey King and Jacob Elordi Break Up?
King and Elordi became friends at first while acting alongside each other, as she told Bello: "I thought he was very cute when we first met, but it started as a friendship.
"Right away we were talking about gross things with each other (laughing). But before long I started to realize, 'Hey, I think I kind of like this person!'
"It was such an interesting experience meeting your boyfriend on set because you spend so much time together and become so close so fast. We were spending 17 hours a day together, and all of us would hang out after work and watch movies together and stuff."
In an interview with The New York Times about the movie's runaway success, the actress said: "It's exciting for people to know what they saw on screen was real."
Fans were just as obsessed with her romance with Australian Elordi, 24, as they were with the movie, as King, 22, explained: "Young people on Instagram made these fan accounts and started hanging out with each other because they love and relate to it so much."
The couple is believed to have parted ways in late 2018 or early 2019.
They've never explained explicitly why they split, but King told Refinery29 that intense speculation about their relationship status from fans only made things worse.
"They can't understand; they can't grasp that reality could be completely different and completely not the same as what you see," she said.
"So I think that the reason why it was really difficult for them to let up on it is because they just have a fantasy idea of someone else's life, when it's not like that at all.
"All you can really do at that point is shut your phone off and crawl into your sister's bed and watch Friends with her, because when you're going through something and the world wants to go through it with you or [wants] to get every piece of detail from you about it, it's really difficult."
Asked what it was like to continue working on the movies with her ex, King told Cosmopolitan: "No one's thinking to themselves, 'That was easy', because it wasn't. I'm sure people will analyze every movement and every detail. And you know what? Let them. But at the end of the day, I was just thrilled to be Elle Evans again."
Moving on from Elordi, King is grateful for their relationship but has no plans to date another actor again.
Appearing on Howard Stern she said: "I think it's a good thing we dated in the first place. I learned the most I've ever learned in my life from him.
"I think that it's awesome to date someone in your field, who gets it, but doing the same exact thing as somebody is tough. It's really tough."
Who Is Joey King Dating?
After experiencing the pitfalls of a very public relationship, King has shared much less about her current partner now that she's moved on.
King met her current boyfriend, Steven Piet, on set of another of her movies The Act.
Piet, 30, was working as a producer on the film in which King played Gypsy Rose Blanchard.
In August 2019, the pair were spotted attending a screening of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets together.
A source told E! News at the time: "They were very affectionate and were with her two sisters sitting watching the movie together.
"Joey and Steven cuddled the entire time and looked very happy together."
Since then, King has posted a number of cosy-looking photos of the two of them together on her Instagram account but only finally confirmed their relationship status in April 2020 when she wrote an essay for InStyle in which she referred to him as her "sweet boyfriend."
