Anderson .Paak filed for divorce from wife Jaylyn Chang on Friday, January 12, after 13 years of marriage.
The Silk Sonic musician (real name Brandon Paak Anderson) cited “irreconcilable differences” as the reason he and Chang (sometimes spelled Jae Lin Chang, her legal name is Heyyoun Chang) broke up, according to court documents obtained by Us Weekly.
Paak and Chang share two sons, Soul Rasheed, 13, and Shine Tariq, 6, and he is asking to share legal and physical custody of sons.
He requested to terminate the court’s ability to award himself or Chang any spousal support.
Paak did not note their date of separation, but the docs reveal that the couple tied the knot on November 23, 2010. The musician has been very private and didn’t correct reports that he married in 2011.
This is Paak’s second marriage. In a a July 2016 interview with The Breakfast Club, the performer noted that he was married for the first time at age 21 for two years. He referred to Chang as the “only wife that matters”.
Paak said Chang immigrated from Korea with no knowledge of English and they met at the Musicians Institute in Hollywood. Before he found success as a musician, he was hired as a band member for a gospel class, which is where he met Chang.
“These things that I’ve gotten — like, my family, my wife, my son — have all been byproducts or whatever of my passion for music,” Paak explained while on The Breakfast Club.
He added that as soon as he found financial success, he gifted Chang a Chanel bag to celebrate.
Chang is also the reason Paak has learned more about his Korean heritage, he told Hypebeast in an April 2023 interview.
“My mom is half Black and half Korean, so I’m a quarter Korean, but I never knew much about my Korean culture until when I was married to my wife, who is fully Korean,” Paak explained. “My kids pretty much see themselves as Korean. Raising [biracial] kids, there’s a dynamic of ‘all right, you got this side and you got this side’ and teaching ‘em about both.”
Chang was described as a singer in a gospel rock band in Paak’s March 2021 interview with Esquire. He also noted that they raise their sons in a bilingual household, speaking both Korean and English.
