Hugh Jackman and Deborra-lee Furness split after 27 years of ...

New York: Red carpet favourites Hugh Jackman and Deborra-lee Furness have decided to end their marriage after 27 years and two children.

“We have been blessed to share almost three decades together as husband and wife in a wonderful, loving marriage,” they said in the joint statement.

“Our journey now is shifting and we have decided to separate to pursue our individual growth.”

They said the statement would be their only comment about the breakup. They added that their family remained their highest priority and that they would undertake “this next chapter with gratitude, love, and kindness”.

The couple met in 1995 while working on the ABC TV show Corelli, in which Jackman played a beaten-up prisoner and Furness played the prison psychologist trying to get him to remember what happened.

Furness was the more established of the two at the time, but Jackman went on to become a major Hollywood and Broadway star.

They married in 1996 and had two children: Oscar, now 23, and Ava, now 18, whom they adopted in the United States, becoming fierce advocates for adoption reform in Australia as a result of their experiences.

Jackman said in 2009 that the couple had wanted to adopt a child from Africa or Asia initially, but Australia’s adoption laws had proved too restrictive.

The couple have been red carpet mainstays for years, posing together at the Oscars, at Broadway events and at the Met Gala, including the most recent edition in May. They attended Wimbledon together in July.

In April, Jackman celebrated their 27th anniversary with a tribute on Instagram.

“I love you so much. Together we have created a beautiful family. And life,” he wrote. “Your laughter, your spirit, generosity, humour, cheekiness, courage and loyalty is an incredible gift to me.”

Australian actor Rachael Beck, who starred with Jackman in an Australian production of Beauty and The Beast in 1995 and 1996, recalled how Jackman was smitten with Furness at the time.

“All the girls would be swooning,” Beck said in 2019. “He was bonkers over Deborra-Lee at that stage, they’d just met while filming Corelli. ”

The couple listed their three-storey condo in New York’s West Village for sale last year, with an asking price of $US38.9 million ($60 million), and bought a different apartment in Chelsea for $21.1 million ($33 million).

A portrait of the couple by Paul Newton made the final of the 2022 Archibald Prize.

Furness, 67, is an advocate for orphans and adoption, especially in Australia, and one of the founding members of National Adoption Awareness Week.

Jackman, 54, who played the superhero Wolverine in several movies, is reprising the role in Deadpool 3, which is on hold due to an ongoing Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strike.

He was made a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2019 for his charitable work and his contribution to the performing arts.

AP

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