It’s tempting, in the Deux Moi age, to think we have any idea what celebrities are up to, but—as the last few weeks of Hollywood gossip have irrevocably proved—we categorically don’t. Following Jada Pinkett Smith’s revelation that she’s been separated from Will Smith for a cool seven years (meaning the slap debacle surprised her just as much as it did us), a representative for Meryl Streep and Don Gummer has confirmed that the couple has lived apart since 2017. “While they will always care for each other, they have chosen lives apart,” Streep’s team told People. The news comes shortly after the couple’s 45th wedding anniversary on 30 September.
Streep first met Gummer through her brother, Harry, in 1978. At the time, she was still mourning her late boyfriend John Cazale, who had died of cancer that spring, but she promptly fell in love with Gummer, marrying him the same year. While the couple largely kept their romance private, Gummer did accompany the Oscar winner to red-carpet events, with Streep paying tribute to him after she won Best Actress for her turn in The Iron Lady in 2012. “First I’m going to thank Don, because when you thank your husband at the end of the speech, they play him out with the music, and I want him to know that everything I value most in our lives, you’ve given me,” a tearful Streep told the Academy.
While the couple are no longer together, they share four children—The Gilded Age’s Louisa Jacobson, Grace Gummer, The Good Fight’s Mamie Gummer, and Henry Wolfe—along with five grandchildren.
