TORONTO — Actress Gwyneth Paltrow and singer Chris Martin announced Tuesday they are separating after a little more than a decade of marriage.
Paltrow, 41, and Martin, 37, shared the news on her website Goop.
“It is with hearts full of sadness that we have decided to separate,” she wrote.
“We have been working hard for well over a year, some of it together, some of it separated, to see what might have been possible between us, and we have come to the conclusion that while we love each other very much we will remain separate.”
Dividing their time between homes in London and New York, the Oscar-winning star and the lead singer of Coldplay were rarely photographed together and rumours of marital woes dogged them for years.
Paltrow and Martin have two children — Apple, 9, and Moses, 7.
Last year, Paltrow told Good Housekeeping marrying Martin was the best decision she ever made. But she told Glamour their marriage had its challenges.
“It’s hard being married,” Paltrow told the magazine. “You go through great times, you go through terrible times. We’re the same as any couple.”
Paltrow’s parents, actors Bruce Paltrow and Blythe Danner, were married from 1969 until his death in 2002.
Gwyneth told Glamour she once asked her father how they managed to stay married for over three decades.
“He said, ‘Well, we never wanted to get divorced at the same time.’ And I think that’s what happens. When two people throw in the towel at the same time, you break up, but if one person’s saying: ‘Come on, we can do this,’ you carry on.
“I’ve learned more about myself being married than anything else. I hate to say, ‘We’ve got it worked out,’ because you never know what’s going to happen, but we laugh, we’re good friends, we like to do the same stuff.”
Paltrow and Martin met shortly after her father’s death and they were married in California on Dec. 5, 2003. It was the first marriage for both. (Paltrow was engaged to actor Brad Pitt in the mid-90s.)
Martin once told CBS Sunday Morning marrying Paltrow was “like winning a lottery.”
Tuesday’s separation announcement — timed for after most of next week’s celebrity magazines had gone to press — continued: “We are … and always will be a family, and in many ways we are closer than we have ever been.
“We are parents first and foremost, to two incredibly wonderful children and we ask for their and our space and privacy to be respected at this difficult time. We have always conducted our relationship privately, and we hope that as we consciously uncouple and coparent, we will be able to continue in the same manner.”
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