Why, God, why? It was bad enough that you split Jon and Kate up. But Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo too? You sick omniscient sod.

Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo were our favourite celebrity couple. We loved how we could never work out what either of them did, and how they’d probably spend entire months awkwardly staring at each other in total silence because they’d both forgotten the word for ‘hello’. But no more – Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo have split up.

Why? Perhaps they just forgot that the other one existed. We do that all the time with them.

If you like sobbing, red-eyed confessional ballads that literally couldn’t be any more forgettable if they concussed you with a mallet as soon as they finish, we’ve got some really terrific news. Everyone knows how much Nick Lachey likes to commemorate romantic splits with jaw-droppingly hapless concept albums about heartbreak, right?

Well expect a doozy of a blub any minute now, because it’s been reported that Nick Lachey has split up with Vanessa Minnillo, the woman famous for… no, it’s gone. We’ll get back to you on that one.

It’s especially sad because, as far as we were concerned, Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo were the perfect celebrity couple. They had it all – bland good looks, annoyingly decent hair, hardcore sex photos, the overwhelming impression that they never spoke during meals because chewing used up their entire brain capacity, nice clothes – which just makes informing you of the Nick Lachey/ Vanessa Minnillo split even harder. That’s why we’ve decided to let People do it for us:

“They have amicably split but remain good friends who still greatly care for one another,” Minnillo’s rep tells PEOPLE of the couple, who began dating in 2006. The split comes after a rash of breakup rumors and reports, which were shot down. Earlier this month Minnillo told PEOPLE that she and Lachey were “very much still on.”

One of those breakup rumours involved Vanessa Minnillo falling for Matt Lanter from Disaster Movie. If that’s true, then it must have been one hell of a breakup conversation:

Vanessa Minnillo: Nick, this isn’t going to be easy. I’ve fallen in love with Matt Lanter from Disaster Movie.

Nick Lachey: What? But why? I don’t understand. Was it me? What did I do?

Vanessa Minnillo: Oh, don’t you see Nick? He’s… he’s just… look Nick, Matt Lanter from Disaster Movie is less famous than you’ll ever be.

Nick Lachey: How can you even say that? I’m Nick Lachey! I’m the least famous man in the world!

Vanessa Minnillo: You’re not, Nick, not any more. Remember that time we went to your cousin’s wedding and one of your parents remembered what your name was? That would never happen to Matt Lanter from Disaster Movie, Nick. That’s how completely obscure he is.

Nick Lachey: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

But still, as sad as all of this is, at least Nick Lachey won’t face any accusations that his relationship with Vanessa Minnillo was all a sham, like he did when his marriage to Jessica Simpson collapsed. True, that’s because the vast majority of people don’t really care if either Nick Lachey or Vanessa Minnillo live or die, but beggers can’t be choosers, can they?

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As we all know, the day that Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo get married will be the day that global warming reverses, all wars stop and mankind lives peacefully under its new kind-hearted demi-god rulers.

Either that or MTV will just cynically lob out a crappy spoon-fed reality TV show about all the zany, slightly staged-looking shenanigans that Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo get up to. One or the other. We can't remember which. Anyway, that doesn't matter for now, because Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo aren't married despite a flurry of rumours that their wedding was due to take place this weekend. But, hey, let's not get too downhearted because Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo didn't get married – we're not so much losing a wedding here as mercifully gaining another week without seeing Nick and Vanessa gurning out from the cover of an OK! magazine wedding special like a couple of wrong morons.

Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo really are the golden couple of blaringly-pointless celebrities who nobody would really miss if they both just vanished off the face of the earth, not even their own parents. Both, at best, are famous by association – Nick Lachey through his marriage to Jessica Simpson and Vanessa Minnillo because of… oh, who the hell knows why Vanessa Minnillo is famous. We don't, and we do this kind of nonsense for a living.

Anyway, aside from a brief moment when they were photographed doing each other up the bum in a swimming pool, Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo have done approximately zero interesting things ever together, but all that was supposed to change this weekend, when Fox reported that the pair of them were going to get married in The Bahamas.

According to their report, Vanessa Minnillo's entourage turned up at a tropical hotel on Friday in preparation of what would surely be the wedding of the year, discounting ever other wedding that's taken place this year. But, as it turns out, the whole report was a crock of crap and Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo didn't get married at all. Nick Lachey's slave denied the rumours outright, saying:

"Not true. Fox is making it up. Nick is in Cincinnati working on the choir show for NBC and a show he is producing for MTV. Fox.com should stick to news."

Ah yes, the choir show. Nick Lachey couldn't get married this weekend, you see, because he's got something to do with the US version of the bewilderingly awful-sounding Choir Wars. And Vanessa Minnillo couldn't find the time in her busy schedule to get married either, because she was busy in Los Angeles having conversations with blank-eyed dolls or trying to count all of her toes at once or something. To be honest we haven't been bothered enough to find out.

Still, though, no Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo wedding means no awful reality TV show about the both of them yet – although if that's something you really wanted to see then you could probably cobble together a fairly accurate substitution by changing TV stations really quickly between a hardcore anal pornography movie and the CCTV feed from your local hospice for the terminally simple.

Read more:

Saint Nick Bringing Ring for Vanessa? Um, Not If You Ask Them… – E! Online