11 Celebrity Couples Who Were Secretly Separated Or Broken Up
1.
Jada Pinkett Smith recently revealed in her memoir Worthy that she and Will Smith have actually been separated for seven years and live “completely separate lives” but that even though she’s thought about getting a legal divorce, it’s ultimately off the table for them because she once “made a promise that there will never be a reason for [them] to get a divorce.”
2.
Meryl Streep recently confirmed that she has been separated from Don Gummer, her husband of 45 years, since 2017 — aka for six years. “Don Gummer and Meryl Streep have been separated for more than 6 years, and while they will always care for each other, they have chosen lives apart,” a representative for Meryl told People.
3.
Rhea Perlman recently revealed that even though she and Danny DeVito separated in 2012, they never legally divorced and they have a “pretty decent understanding and relationship with each other now.” And even though it took some time, the two are now in a good place. “We are still very good friends and we see each other a lot,” she said on Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Wiser Than Me podcast. “And our family is still the most important thing to both of us, I believe.”
4.
Haley Lu Richardson and Brett Dier revealed last year that they had actually been broken up for two years, since 2020, after a seven-year relationship and brief engagement. “We actually separated two years ago,” Haley revealed in an Instagram story, sharing a picture of her and Brett. “But life goes on and we are both existing and doing pretty well turns out. We shared a deeply special chunk of our lives together. I’m so glad to have had the last couple years to heal and grow without the internet knowing but we kinda just wanted to share it and move on now.”
5.
By the time news of Ariana Grande and Dalton Gomez’s split after two years of marriage broke this summer, the couple had actually been apart since the beginning of 2023 and they were “quietly and lovingly working on their friendship” they confirmed to People at the time.
6.
Elliot Page and his wife, Emma Portner, publicly announced their divorce after three years of marriage in 2021 — but they also revealed that they had already been separated for several months. “After much thought and careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to divorce following our separation last summer,” they shared in a joint statement with People. “We have the utmost respect for each other and remain close friends.”
7.
Laurence Fishburne and Gina Torres announced their split in 2017, basically a full year after they had separated. “With heavy hearts, Laurence and I quietly separated and began the dissolution of our marriage in the early fall of last year,” Gina confirmed to People in a statement at the time. “There are no bad guys here. Only a love story with a different ending than either one of us had expected. Happily, however, our family remains intact and we will continue to raise our daughter together with love and joy and awe. As well as raise each other up with respect and love and the continued understanding that we’re in this together, if not side by side.”
8.
Florence Pugh and Zach Braff broke up in 2022 after three years of dating, and while she didn’t share the exact timeline, she did reveal that they decided to keep their split private for a while. “We’ve been trying to do this separation without the world knowing, because it’s been a relationship that everybody has an opinion on,” she told Harper’s Bazaar. “We just felt something like this would really do us the benefit of not having millions of people telling us how happy they are that we’re not together. So we’ve done that.”
9.
Lauren Graham confirmed that she and Peter Krause quietly broke up after more than a decade together. In June 2022, her rep confirmed to People that they had “quietly ended their relationship last year.”
10.
Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis confirmed that they’d ended their engagement after seven years in November 2020 — but they’d actually split much earlier. “The split happened at the beginning of the year,” a source told People at the time.
11.
Finally, Teyana Taylor took to Instagram to clarify the timeline of her split with Iman Shumpert in September. “Iman and I are separated and have been for a while. To be 1000% clear, ‘infidelity’ ain’t one of the reasons for our departure,” she wrote. “We are still the best of friends, great business partners and are one hell of a team when it comes to co-parenting our 2 beautiful children.”
