Joey King's romantic journey: From co-star flings to marrying director Steven Piet

Joey King's star has been on the rise, with her latest venture, the dystopian flick Uglies, premiering on Netflix this Friday, September 13. As she continues to soar professionally, curiosity burgeons around her personal life and romantic history.

The young actress found love on the set of The Kissing Booth in 2017 with co-star Jacob Elordi, as their characters' on-screen romance spilled into reality. However, despite the chemistry, the couple parted ways in November 2018 after a romance that lasted nearly a year.

In a candid chat with Refinery29 in July 2019, Joey King shared her coping mechanism post-breakup: "All you can really do at that point is shut your phone off and crawl into your sister's bed and watch Friends with her, because when you're going through something and the world wants to go through it with you or [wants] to get every piece of detail from you about it, it's really difficult."

She continued, reflecting on the public's fascination with her private life: "Some of these things are just meant for you. I don't fault it, but it was a little difficult going through some of that stuff a couple months ago. Now I feel good, and they've calmed down a little, which is nice."

Despite their split, Joey and her former beau teamed up again for The Kissing Booth sequels in 2020 and 2021. Following the release of the second film, whispers began circulating about a possible romance between Joey and another co-star, Taylor Zakhar Perez, reports the Daily Star.

After ending a whirlwind of rumours in 2020, he confessed to Access, "I know, we went away this weekend for some friends' birthdays, and her birthday, and everyone kinda freaked about it. I will say that we are not dating.

"We just became really close during filming, but then we became even closer after filming because we live really close to each other.

"I think we're like a three or four minute drive from each other. We're kind of each other's accountability partners during quarantine. So we got to hang out, make sure that we weren't seeing anybody outside of the circle of people that we trusted."

Joey first sparked a romance with producer and director Steven Piet in 2019 after crossing paths on the set of The Act.

The couple took their relationship to the next level by getting engaged in February 2022, culminating in a wedding in Mallorca, Spain by September 2023.

For their paper anniversary, the newlyweds recently observed their first year of marriage, with Joey commemorating the special day with a thoughtful present - a newspaper from the date of her husband's birth.

Uglies is streaming on Netflix now.