Britney Spears and Kevin Federline file for divorceA few stories this year have made us sit back and say “huh, I didn’t see that one coming” and strangely enough, they’re ones we probably should have seen coming because of rumours kicking around for a while.

Take Britney Spears‘ split from Kevin Federline - they’d been rumoured to be having problems for nearly their whole marriage but along with Kevin, we were surprised when Britney actually filed the papers so soon after the birth of their second son. The same goes for Reese Witherspoon’s separation from Ryan Phillippe: sure, Ryan’s been rumoured for a while to be jealous of her success but we genuinely thought they’d be in it for the long haul or at least for a few years longer.

Katie Holmes’s friendship with Victoria Beckham, had been rumoured for a while too: Victoria was reportedly involved in Katie’s pregancy and post-birth weight loss but it seems such an unlikely pairing that it wasn’t until the two of them stepped out together in Paris that we really believed that they were actually good buddies.

Similarly, Eddie Murphy and Melanie Brown seemed an unlikely pairing and we were surprised when it was confirmed - and by Eddie’s way of announcing its end to both us and to Mel. That story might have a few more surprises in store for us yet though.

And finally, yet another thing that should have been unsurprising but still was a bit of a shock was Pete Doherty’s arrest for possession of drugs in November. With his repeated arrests earlier in the year for possession and the like, it should have been just “oh, again?” but when he went through a month in the Priory and got back together with Kate Moss, we genuinely thought he was trying to leave it all behind him. Perhaps he’ll beat his addiction in 2007.