Anna Faris and Chris Pratt
PRATT & ANNA FARIS Hollywood’s most relatable couple announce their surprise separation
THEY WERE THE COUPLE WHO made everyone laugh. Fans who followed Anna Faris and Chris Pratt on social media were frequently treated to glimpses of their seemingly idyllic family life: sharing drinks in the backyard of their Los Angeles mansion, going on fishing trips with son Jack, who turns 5 on Aug. 25, and messing around when they visited each other on sets. But on Aug. 6 the couple, who have been married for eight years, shared a more sombre insight in their lives: “Anna and I are sad to announce we are legally separating,” Pratt, 38, shared on his Facebook page. Faris, 40, posted an almost identical statement on Instagram. “We tried hard for a long time,
and we’re really disappointed … We still have love for each other, will always cherish our time together and continue to have the deepest respect for one another.”
The strain on the relationship is partly a consequence of shared success. The Mom star and the Jurassic World leading man have long admitted time apart while filming wasn’t easy on the marriage—and there were tabloid rumours of infidelity in recent years. But for many who know the couple, the news came as a shock. “I think most were genuinely surprised by the news,” says a source. “But Hollywood relationships rarely last—and even a couple as relatable and unaffected as Anna and Chris can still find it difficult to make it work while under the limelight.”
Faris and Pratt met in 2007 playing a couple in the big-screen comedy Take Me Home Tonight. “We both grew up sort of playing similar kinds of roles in Hollywood, but when I first met him what struck me was how good he was in the scene,” Faris, who rose to fame in the early 2000s as the lead of the Scary Movie franchise, told WHO in 2014. “I just remember thinking, ‘Holy shit. He’s good.’ Instantly my respect and regard for him went through the roof and I started crushing really hard on him.”
Faris was in the process of separating from her first husband, actor Ben Indra, while working on Tonight— and by late 2008 the divorce was finalised and she and Pratt, who had grown up 20 minutes from her home town in Washington state, were engaged. “I knew I wanted to marry her pretty soon [after I met her],” Pratt told WHO a few months before their July 2009 wedding in Bali. “It took a while for me to admit it, because it would be crazy to be like, ‘I want to marry you,’ the first day I met her. But I could have!”
The couple grew even closer after Faris was put on bed rest for four weeks leading up to the premature birth of their son, Jack, in August 2012. “We were scared for a long time. We prayed a lot,” Pratt has said of welcoming Jack, who was born
almost two months early and spent a month in a neonatal intensive care unit. “It must have been jarring for other people to come in and see him, but to us he was so beautiful.”
Faris said she “couldn’t feel more proud” as she watched her husband go from Parks and Recreation’s resident lovable schlub to Hollywood’s hottest new leading man in Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World. But the big paycheques came with lengthy shooting schedules that kept the couple apart for long periods. “Chris is in high demand and jetting all over the world working with beautiful women while Anna is mostly in LA for her work,” says an insider. “That hurt their relationship.” In December, Faris opened up on her podcast, Anna Faris Is Unqualified, about “feeling so hurt” by talk of marriage trouble—“it made me feel incredibly insecure.”
Recently, there were signs the pair had found new happiness: Faris joined Pratt on the press tour for his Guardians sequel in April, he upgraded her engagement ring in August (see above) and they talked of having another child. But there were also signs of an unravelling. “There’s definitely a loneliness ... to being a performer,” Faris said on the July 31 episode of her podcast. “I feel like I have to laugh.”
Though they’ve chosen to separate, the couple say Jack will remain their focus. Friends say they share a deep friendship, but that in the end, “It had become too difficult, with each leading totally different lives,” says the insider. “They just grew apart.”
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