If it wasn’t for him being dragged into the Amber Heard v. Johnny Depp defamation trainwreck, many wouldn’t know Elon Musk dated the actress. He did, and even though it was on and off for only for a year, Heard apparently left a gaping hole in his heart when she dumped him in 2018. Per Cosmopolitan, Heard was fresh off her Depp divorce while Musk was still licking his wounds over Talulah Riley, and the two started hooking up.

Unsurprisingly, their relationship was fiery and intense. “Musk was not bred for domestic tranquility,” Walter Isaacson writes in his book “Elon Musk,” noting that his romantic connections inevitably involve “psychological turmoil.” However, according to Isaacson, Heard’s own psychological turmoil turned nuclear, resulting in Musk being drawn “into a dark vortex that lasted more than a year.” His friends told Isaacson that they believe Elon’s “2018 tailspin” was because of him “being in awful grief around Amber.”

Their split tore him to pieces. “I just broke up with my girlfriend. I was really in love, and it hurt bad,” Musk admitted during an interview with Rolling Stone. “Well, she broke up with me more than I broke up with her, I think.” Heard officially announced their split on Instagram. “Although we have broken up, Elon and I care deeply for one another and remain close. Thank you for the continued support, respect, and privacy during these difficult, very human times,” she wrote as a caption on a photo of roses spelling out the word “Give.”