Zac Brown and his wife, Shelly, have split after 12 years of marriage. The pair announced their decision to separate in a joint statement on Friday, October 5.
“We feel blessed to be on such an incredible journey in life and sometimes the journey begins to lead in different directions. It is with deep love and respect that we announce we are separating as a couple,” the statement to Us Weekly. “We have led a whirlwind life together growing into a beautiful family with five amazing children and while life will be rearranging a bit, our love and commitment to our family will always be there. This was a difficult decision, but we’ve done plenty of tough things together and this is our next venture — love, mutual respect, and care for each other are what we are moving forward with.”
They concluded: “Family comes in all different forms. We would like to ask that rather than commenting or spending any energy towards this, that you take this moment to send love to your family, in honor of ours.”
The Zac Brown Band frontman, 40, and the jewelry designer, 34, tied the knot in 2006. They are parents of daughters Justice, 11, Lucy, 10, Georgia, 8, Joni, 7, and son Alexander, 4.
Back in August 2017, Shelly broke down into tears telling the story of how the pair met and started a camp called Camp Southern Ground for kids.
“A friend of his introduced us. I was really young – I had just finished college,” she explained during an interview with the Grand Ole Opry’s “Better Half” series. “On our first date, [Zac] told me he wanted to create a camp for kids … I can’t ever tell this story without crying … I’m going to cry.”
Through tears, Shelly continued the story about an autistic camper who attended a mini-camp run by Camp Southern Ground. “He had never been invited to a birthday party or anything like that, and now he had all these friends and talked about that,” she explained. “That was, like, amazing!”
