Alan Ritchson and his wife, Catherine Ritchson, are ending their marriage after 20 years, closing a chapter that began with a teenage romance, a breakup and a later reunion before they built a family together.
The Reacher star and Catherine announced the decision together Sept. 12, saying they had “decided to end our marriage and continue alongside one another in a different way.” They emphasized that the years they spent together still carry love and respect and said their three sons remain the center of their world.
The public announcement followed an earlier attempt to separate. Legal documents cited in current reporting show that Alan filed for divorce in December 2025 before the couple reconciled in March 2026.
Neither has publicly identified a reason for the current split. Their statement instead focuses on friendship, privacy and learning how to raise Calem, Edan and Amory together while giving one another room to move forward separately.
The Announcement Came After an Earlier Divorce Filing
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Alan and Catherine made the split public through a joint Instagram statement. EW reported that the couple said they had grown up together, built a life and family together and would continue raising their three sons with the boys’ well-being at the center of their decisions.
“Nothing can diminish what these years have meant to us or the love and respect we will always share,” they wrote. They said the best thing they can now give one another and their children is “friendship, grace and a commitment to becoming the strongest co-parents we can be.”
The September announcement was not the first time their marriage had reached a legal breaking point. TMZ says legal documents show Alan filed for divorce in December 2025 and that the couple reconciled in March before eventually deciding to separate again.
They First Met in Ballet Class as Teenagers
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Alan and Catherine’s history reaches back well beyond their 2006 wedding. They first met as teenagers while taking ballet classes in Florida, when he was 17 and she was 16. Us Weekly reported that they dated through one summer before breaking up. Years later, while Catherine was attending the University of Florida, Alan came to the area for modeling work and the two reconnected.
They married on May 12, 2006, and eventually became parents to three sons. Over the years, both occasionally shared public glimpses of their marriage even as they generally kept the relationship more private than Alan’s increasingly visible acting career.
Alan’s anniversary tributes often framed the marriage and family as the most important part of his life. In 2025, marking their 19th anniversary, he called what they had built together the “greatest privilege and success” of his life.
Their Family Was Still Appearing Together This Summer
The separation announcement came only two months after Alan, Catherine and their sons appeared together at the New York premiere of Motor City on July 13. PEOPLE published a photograph of the family of five together at the Museum of Modern Art months after the reported reconciliation.
Catherine had also been a visible supporter of Alan’s work during their marriage. When Reacher Season 3 premiered in 2025, she publicly celebrated the show and wrote that she was proud of him.
Alan and Catherine said they want to give one another room “to grow into the people we are becoming.” They also acknowledged the difficulty of navigating that process publicly, writing that change is difficult enough without outside scrutiny. “We hope, especially for the sake of our boys, that you will allow our family to move through this chapter with privacy and compassion,” they wrote.