Julia Roberts cancelled wedding to Kiefer Sutherland and ran off with best pal

Julia Roberts is undoubtedly the queen of rom-coms having reached the top tier of her career after starring in iconic Hollywood movie Runaway Bride.

Eight years before the movie’s box-office smash hit, Julia, now 52, was almost a runaway bride herself when she called off her wedding to actor Keifer Sutherland at the last minute.

Just two days before they were set to walk down the aisle, Julia abruptly called off her wedding to the 24 actor in 1991.

Julia and Kiefer’s love blossomed when they laid eyes on one another during the first day of filming their 1990 flick Flatliners.

After building a special bond with the A-list actor, Julia decided to call of her brief engagement to Dylan McDermott, who she fell head over heels for while filming Steel Magnolias.

As their steamy romance heated up, Kiefer was still married to his first wife, Camelia Kath before their divorce became final later that year.

In January 1990, Julia and Kiefer made their relationship official when they cuddled and canoodled on the red-carpet during the Golden Globe Awards.

During her acceptance speech after bagging the award for Best Supporting Actress in Steel Magnolias, Julia thanked her “best friend – her beautiful blue-eyed, green-eyed best friend, who gives me everything.”

This was an obvious nod to Kiefer who famously sports two different coloured eyes.

As their seemingly perfect romance went from strength-to-strength for the next couple of months, the lovebirds faced a massive hurdle when Kiefer was accused of cheating on Julia with a stripper.

Kiefer, who holds a well-documented history of alcohol abuse, moved out of Julia’s Hollywood home for a short period of time, shining light on the reality of their relationship.

The Lost Boys star checked himself into a hotel down the street from his love’s not-so-humble abode where he was said to have kept the company with a 24-year-old go-go dancer named Amanda Rice, who at the time, performed under the codename Raven.

After claiming that she slept with the star, Amanda sold her story to multiple papers and claimed that Kiefer told her that Julia’s sensational success from Pretty Woman turned her into an ‘insecure ice princess’.

Despite the damaging claims, just a few weeks later, Julia was spotted with a huge diamond engagement ring on her finger.

Then came the big day, or rather, the big day that never actually happened.

Weeks before Julia and Kiefer were set to walk down the aisle to become man and wife, the Pretty Woman star hosted a lavish hen party with an array of a-list stars but suspicion ensued when her husband-to-be called off his stag party just three days before he was due to spend his last night as a single man.

The day their stunning wedding was due to take place, Kiefer moved out of Julia’s house and into his own apartment.

According to reports, the actor only learned about their wedding being called off not from his fiancé, but from a mutual friend who delivered him the heartbreaking news.

The blow was magnified when Kiefer learned that his ex-lover spent their actual wedding day enjoying a date with his best friend at the time, Jason Patric.

Instead of heading off on her honeymoon with Kiefer, Julia and Jason jetted off to Ireland where they were ‘practically making love’ on the plane, according to eye-witnesses who spoke to Daily Mail at the time.

After being followed by paparazzi on their journey across the Emerald Isle, Julia and her new man were forced to go public with their romance once they landed back on American soil.

Ultimately, things didn’t work out between the two and they later called off their romance in 1992.

The details of Julia and Kiefer’s disastrous relationship and nuptials were kept under wraps for almost two decades before Kiefer finally decided to dish the dirt during an interview in 2016.

In a baffling turn of events, the once heartbroken star even praised ‘courageous’ Julia calling it quits on their big day.

“I think she had courage. It wasn’t what she wanted to do in the end. And I think it took a lot of courage, in amongst all of that other stuff, to be able to say, “I can’t do this,’” he explained during an appearance on The Jess Cagle Interview.

“We were both young, and we were both very much in love, we had decided that we wanted to get married, but then this other thing kind of took over.

“She was arguably the most famous woman in the world, and this wedding that was supposed to be something between the two of us, became something so big.”