Actress Gwyneth Paltrow and Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin said on Tuesday that they are breaking up after more than 10 years of marriage.
In a post titled “Conscious Uncoupling” on Paltrow’s lifestyle website, the former couple write:
“It is with hearts full of sadness that we have decided to separate. 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. We are, however, 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.”
They go on to mention the word "divorce" twice, in subsequent paragraphs that explain the philosophy of "conscious uncoupling."
News of the announcement crashed Paltrow's website goop.com for a few hours.
Paltrow and Martin married in a private ceremony in Santa Barbara, California in 2003. They are parents to Apple, 9, and Moses, 7.
The marriage of two superstars had been the subject of media scrutiny in recent months, after reports emerged that Vanity Fair magazine was planning a “takedown” story on the 41-year-old actress. The state of her marriage was presumed to be the topic.
The story, which was to be published in the annual Hollywood issue of Vanity Fair, never ran.
In his editor’s letter in the March Vanity Fair issue, Editor Graydon Carter wrote that he decided not to publish the piece on Paltrow because it was “such a far cry from the almost mythical story that people were by now expecting -- the “epic takedown,” filled with “bombshell revelations.”
Carter said he wanted to write a piece on the “Gwyneth Paltrow love/hate phenomenon” after the Hollywood actress topped Star magazine’s poll as the most hated celebrity.
