Rachael Leigh Cook and Daniel Gillies Announce Split After Nearly 15 Years of Marriage
Rachael Leigh Cook and Daniel Gillies have separated.
After nearly 15 years of marriage, the She’s All That star and The Originals actor announced their separation in a joint statement on Thursday.
“With deep gratitude for every year we have spent together and the thousands of beautiful memories shared, we have mutually decided to separate as a couple,” began the statement, which was shared to their respective Instagram accounts.
“This decision isn’t one we have come to easily or lightly. We love and respect each other as parents, people and artists and look forward to maintaining the best parts of our relationship for many years to come,” the statement continued.
The couple wrote, “Your discretion in this matter is kindly requested for the sake of our children during this time of transition. Thank you to those of you who are already aware; for your tremendous compassion and understanding.”
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They signed the joint statement, “Lots of love, Rachael and Daniel.”
Cook, 39, and Gillies, 43, tied the knot in August 2004 and welcomed two children together over the course of their marriage: daughter Charlotte Easton, 5, and son Theodore Vigo Sullivan, 4.
In 2013, Cook opened up about her marriage with Gillies after announcing her first pregnancy.
“We got married incredibly fast,” the actress told PEOPLE from the set of her TNT crime-drama, Perception.
“We got engaged after dating for maybe five months and we got married a couple of months after that,” she added. “There was just so much more both of us wanted to do. We wanted to travel and accomplish a lot more in our professional lives.”
Although many people were waiting to see her pregnant — Cook said that after announcing she was expecting, many reactions included “Finally!” — she insisted she and Gillies had no regrets waiting almost a decade into their marriage to add a baby carriage.
“We’re both people who like kids, but we weren’t jumping up and down, like, ‘Oh my God, let’s start that chapter of our lives,’ ” explained Cook, who was 33 at the time. “We weren’t those kind of people. Now that we know what our lives are going to look like — sort of — for the next couple of months, we just felt like it was the right time finally. We’re not getting any younger.”
