Cameron and Vanessa Mathison are going their ways.
The former couple announced their divorce on Wednesday, July 31, four days after their 22nd wedding anniversary. They explained their choice in a joint Instagram post.
Посмотреть эту публикацию в Instagram
“Our children have been and will continue to be our highest priority, and we will forever share in our devotion and love for them,” according to their statement.
PEOPLE has reached out to Cameron and Vanessa’s agents for more comment.
Entertainment Tonight was the first to announce the news.
Cameron and Vanessa married on July 27, 2002, and welcomed baby Lucas in April 2003. Their daughter Leila was born three years later, in July 2006.
The 54-year-old All My Children veteran recently discussed some upcoming changes in his life, including becoming an empty nester once his daughter leaves for college in the autumn.
Just hours before announcing his divorce, he turned to Instagram to reveal what he and his two children had been up to this summer. “Summer photo dump☺️,” Cameron captioned it. “Last few weeks before I’m an official empty nester😢.”
Посмотреть эту публикацию в Instagram
Despite not appearing in any of the ten images depicting the three hiking and enjoying time outdoors during a trip to Arizona, Vanessa, 57, left a kind comment under the post.
She wrote, “❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️,”
In a June interview on Cheryl Burke’s Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans podcast, Cameron discussed a previous marital conflict between himself and Vanessa. When approached to be a participant on Dancing With the Stars, the actor stated he was concerned about working with pro Edyta Śliwińska.
“I contacted [the casting director] and said, ‘Listen, I’m really glad you’ve offered me the show. I cannot wait. I’m in. Please do me a favor. ” He recalls, “Put me with anyone but Edyta.” “Because I knew my wife and I, were going through a little bit of a challenge at that time.”
Cameron quipped that Śliwińska “didn’t wear a lot of clothes,” but the two ended up dancing and becoming “really close.”
“Vanessa was a trooper,” he added. “We’d recently gone through a bunch of stuff, and it wasn’t great timing,” he continued. “I was off in LA spending time with this beautiful woman, dressed up, against her, sweating with her five hours a day, and then doing all the press and touring stuff together, and it was really hard,” he continued.
I tried. I made every effort to simplify things for her, but the situation was unavoidable. I mean, certainly, you can be married and do the program, but depending on the circumstances, it may be quite difficult,” he remarked.
A few months previously, in May, the actor spoke with PEOPLE about his children’s development. He stated that “it’s tough” to send his daughter off, and that his son had “already been to college.”
“It’s the best thing in the world,” he told me. “But at the same time, I don’t believe I’m prepared. I mean, you believe you are. You’re like, ‘Oh, it’s going to be great,’ but I’m going to miss them.”
Once he had more free time, he stated his plans to pursue other activities to keep himself engaged.
“I believe I have numerous passions.” I have several hobbies. “I don’t want to waste that time,” he told PEOPLE. “But I feel I have some plans.”
“I’m big on health, fitness, and longevity, and I’m studying to become a functional health coach myself,” he says. “I have several projects in the works, and I don’t mind being on TV, hosting, acting, and doing other things.”