Alan Ritchson and his wife Catherine have announced their separation after 20 years of marriage. The Reacher star, 43, and Catherine Ritchson shared the news jointly on Instagram on Saturday, September 12th, releasing a joint statement that was warm, measured, and asked explicitly for privacy — especially for the sake of their three sons.
“After twenty years together, Cat and I have decided to end our marriage and continue alongside one another in a different way,” the statement read. “We grew up together. We built a life and a family together. And we are raising three incredible boys who will always be the center of our world. Nothing can diminish what these years have meant to us — or the love and respect we will always share.”
The couple, who married in 2006, said their focus now is on co-parenting and supporting each other through the transition. “The best gift we can give one another — and our boys — right now is friendship, grace and a commitment to becoming the strongest co-parents we can be. We also want to give each other room to grow into the people we are becoming.”
They concluded by asking the public to afford their family space. “Change is hard enough without the whole world weighing in. We hope, especially for the sake of our boys, that you will allow our family to move through this chapter with privacy and compassion.”
How They Met
Ritchson and Catherine met as teenagers in a ballet class. Ritchson had been taking college-level courses in high school and enrolled in dance classes at the state college, where he initially assumed Catherine was older than him and out of reach. When he discovered she was doing exactly the same thing — dual enrolling while still in high school — he worked up the courage to speak to her. They did a play together that summer, began dating, and Ritchson described falling “madly in love.”
At the end of that summer, assuming geography would separate them permanently, Ritchson ended the relationship. Catherine later recalled on a podcast that “he thought it was a fling, and I didn’t,” joking that she had “made him pay for it ever since.” Several years later, a mutual friend reconnected them and, as Catherine put it, “it was kind of history after that.”
In previous years, Ritchson had been candid about the challenges Catherine navigated alongside him. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 36, he reflected in a 2023 anniversary post on what that had meant for his wife. “Dealing with a bipolar husband who can give a sane partner severe whiplash and a level of fame that nothing can prepare you for — I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy,” he wrote, praising Catherine’s “unspeakable strength, persistence, resilience, patience, grace, love, compassion and forgiveness.”
The couple were last photographed together publicly in July at the premiere of Ritchson’s action film Motor City, where they walked the red carpet with their children.
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