Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia were truly the Romeo and Juliet of actors with impossible-to-spell surnames.

That’s right – were. Fans of freaky relationships between teenagers and much, much older – almost inappropriately older – full-grown adult men should probably sit down for this. Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia from Heroes have just split up.

Apparently Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia have split up because they’re ‘in different places’. But at least now Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia can move onto people nearer their own ages – so Madonna’s adopted African son and the dusty old knight from the end of Indiana Jones 3, then.

If you like Heroes, then… actually, no, wait. Nobody likes Heroes any more, do they? Most people would rather stab themselves in the face with a pen than watch a new episode of Heroes. Let’s start this paragraph again.

If you’re aware of the existence of a television show called Heroes that used to be quite good but quickly turned into a fat sack of animal testes, then you’ll be aware of Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia. Hayden plays the invincible cheerleader Claire, while Milo plays a floppy-haired nutsack whose superpower seems to involve whining a lot.

But even though Heroes is basically unwatchable toss, it provided the perfect environment for love to blossom between Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia. It didn’t matter that she was a teenager and he was a man in his thirties, nor that she played his schoolgirl niece in Heroes, nor that if the relationship had happened a few months earlier he’d be put on some kind of permanent register and chased around everywhere by a violent torch-wielding mob – Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia were in love, and nothing could stop it.

Well, nothing but the yawning age-chasm between them, obviously. Because now it’s emerged that Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia have finally split up. The New York Daily News reports:

“It was a lifestyle conflict,” an insider told Us Weekly magazine, suggesting that the 12-year age gap between Panettiere, 19, and Ventimiglia, 31, may have been a factor in their split. “They were in very different places,” added the source. “[Panettiere] is young. She likes to go out in the Hollywood scene and that’s not his style.” Ventimiglia meanwhile, “has been concentrating on work on his production company.”

Although Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia have remained on friendly terms, the question of how the split will affect Heroes is another matter entirely. We’re particularly looking forward to the future plotline where Peter Petrelli rushes to save Claire from certain death, only for Claire to start laying into him about why he never wants to go to any parties with her and how she should have listened to her mother. Unless that’s already happened. It’s not like we actually watch Heroes, is it?

But at least Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia can move on romantically now. And, what with Hayden’s miraculous ability to instantaneously recover from any injuries she sustains, it looks like she might have a future career lined up as Chris Brown’s girlfriend.

Oh, alright – allegedly.

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