A couple of weeks ago, I blogged that it is “It’s a revolving marital door in Hollywood” and this week, the door shut on a few more marriages.
The first celebrity split I learned about this week was Laura Dern and Ben Harper. Harper filed for divorce last Friday, stating irreconcilable differences. He also asked for joint custody of the couple’s children, son Ellery Walker, 9, and Jaya, 5.
Dern and Harper started dating shortly after her then-boyfriend Billy Bob Thornton married Angelina Jolie while Dern was away shooting a movie. Dern and Harper dated for five years before marrying on December 23, 2005.
According to TMZ, Dern was caught off guard by this break-up as well. They are reporting that Dern didn’t see it coming and Harper just disappeared from her life. Although Harper claims they separated in January, the couple attended Eddie Vedder’s wedding last month.
Next up on the chopping block is the marriage of Courtney Cox and David Arquette. The couple released a statement in which they said they have “agreed to a trial separation that dates back for some time.”
The couple met in 1996 while filming Scream. They married in 1999 and had always been open about working on their relationship. Cox admitted in an In Style interview last summer that they had been through couples therapy and were “not lazy about our marriage.” Arquette told Howard Stern today that Cox told him “I don’t wanna be your mother anymore.” He’s upset by the split, but says “I respected that” and added “I’m trying to grow up.” They have one daughter, Coco, who is 6-years-old.
And before I could even finish this blog, the news was announced today that Christina Aguilera and her husband of almost five years, Jordan Bratman, have split. A source says the couple is trying to work things out and no divorce papers have been filed yet. The couple has a two-year-old son, Max, who was born in January 2008.