The Vampire Diaries fans were rooting for Delena on the show as Nina Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder were getting close in real life — but the actress actually dated a different version of Damon while auditioning for The CW classic.

Dobrev, now 36, recalled chemistry reading with actor Rob Mayes as Damon, but the show’s production team didn’t know they were actually dating at the time.

“There was a bunch of drama around that [audition] because I was dating Rob Mayes at the time, but they didn’t know that,” Dobrev recalled in the newly released book I Was Feeling Epic: An Oral History of The Vampire Diaries. “We were trying to keep it really secret because we were afraid that if they found out, they wouldn’t cast one or both of us.”

She got cast as Elena Gilbert and Mayes was not Damon. That

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