Celebrated actress Kate Winslet and her husband Jim Threapleton have separated after less than three years of marriage. The couple welcomed their first child last year, but have parted ways before baby Mia’s first birthday.
“No other parties are involved in this amicable and respectful separation,” reads a statement from her spokesman, Robert Garlock. “Their daughter Mia will remain the first priority for both of them.”
“This is an absolutely amicable separation and it is a mutual decision between both of us,” says Kate. “It is extremely sad but we are all fine… Jim and I are communicating constantly. Mia remains the happy child that she always has been.”
The British beauty met Jim, a 26-year-old film director, on the set of her post Titanic project, Hideous Kinky. “I arrived and saw this rather glorious-looking blond boy with fantastic blue eyes, and I just went, ‘shit’, because I knew that was it and there was nothing either of us could do about it,” said Kate. The two married in November 1998 in a low-key ceremony at her local church in Reading, southern England.
And while the 25-year-old star often gushed over married life, she recently admitted it wasn’t all the stuff of fairytales. “Having a baby has strengthened the relationship although there are highs and lows and at times it’s tough,” she reveals in September’s In Style.
Kate, a two-time Oscar nominee, is said to be devastated by the separation, which reportedly happened in the last few weeks. “I think most people were just completely astonished when Kate told them that it was all over between her and Jim,” reports one friend of the couple. “We thought they were made for each other and they always seemed so happy. They seemed like two sides of the same coin.”
However, career pressures were said to have taken a toll on the relationship. The pair had agreed to take on film projects in turns, but, as Kate’s career has gone from strength to strength – her WWII film Enigma opens across the UK on September 28 and she’s just shot the story of Iris Murdoch alongside Dame Judi Dench – Jim’s opportunities seem to have dwindled.
“Kate is absolutely devastated and we are all so sorry this happened,” says another insider. “But she knows it’s definitely over and she knows her own mind and knows what she wants to do. She has said that she is getting a divorce from Jim and that the marriage has collapsed.”
The couple had been living in a refurbished pump house on the river Thames but have now moved out, but Kate and Mia have moved back into the north London flat she used to share with her sister. The home is reportedly up for sale.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
