Keeping it professional! Nina Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder broke up in 2013, but the way they handled their split is still impressive to former costar Claire Holt.
The Australian actress, 32, played Rebekah Mikaelson on The Vampire Diaries and its spinoff, The Originals, and said that she has a rule about not dating costars. While Holt explained that it would be too awkward for her personally, it has worked out fine for some of her friends.
“I was on The Originals at that point, so I don’t know the timing,” Holt explained on the Monday, May 17, episode of the “Not Skinny But Not Fat” podcast. “But honestly, they were really — they kept it super professional.”
Dobrev, 32, and Somerhalder, 42, started dating in 2010 and took their romance public in 2012. They split in 2013, but they continued to work together until the Canadian actress left the show in 2015 (though she returned for the 2017 series finale).
For the two seasons where Dobrev and Somerhalder worked together as exes, at which point their characters were in love, they apparently made sure their personal issues were not an issue for their coworkers.
“It never got weird, like, props to them,” Holt added. “They did a great job at managing that. But it’s hard. Like for a lot of people, it’s really tough.”
Somerhalder married wife Nikki Reed in May 2015, and they welcomed daughter Bodhi in July 2017. The couple remain friends with the Degrassi alum, which they’ve publicly addressed several times.
In 2019, a Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen viewer asked Dobrev if it was “weird” for her to be friends with her ex and his new wife. “I don’t think that’s weird at all. I think that’s great,” she said at the time. “Why can’t everyone be friends?”
Dobrev, meanwhile, is getting serious with athlete Shawn White, an insider said.
“Nina and Shaun are very happy together at the moment,” a source told Us Weekly exclusively in April, adding that they “wouldn’t be surprised if an engagement is around the corner.”
The insider added that the actress is very happy with their relationship. “Nina has had a lot of relationships not work out in the past, but ever since meeting Shaun, you can tell she’s just really excited about how far this relationship has come,” the source said. “They’re gradually taking steps to starting a future together.”