Family first! Drew Barrymore and Will Kopelman have confirmed and addressed their divorce in a joint statement given to Us Weekly.
“Sadly our family is separating legally, although we do not feel this takes away from us being a family,” the pair tells Us. “Divorce might make one feel like a failure, but eventually you start to find grace in the idea that life goes on.”
“Our children are our universe,” the parents of daughters Olive, 3, and Frankie, 23 months, add, “and we look forward to living the rest of our lives with them as the first priority.”
Prior to that statement, sources confirmed news of Barrymore and Kopelman’s split this past Friday, April 1. The pair began dating in February 2011 and later wed in a lavish ceremony at her Montecito, California, mansion in June 2012.
Last November, the former child star, now 41, opened up to Us Weekly about the hard work she and Kopelman, 37, put in to make married life work.
“My husband and I compromise on a lot of things … It’s the little things that you can change that can make a relationship stronger,” she explained to Us at the time. “Compromise is about changing yourself for the better. It’s an opportunity for you to become a more functional, better person.”
Despite calling it quits, a source tells Us Weekly that the pair looked happier than ever just a few weeks ago at a friend’s wedding in Ojai, California, on March 19.
“They looked really happy together,” an eyewitness told Us of the now exes. “They seemed perfectly happy.
“They seemed totally fine,” the insider adds of the amicable duo. “Both were really friendly to everyone, and he had his arm around her at the reception.”
Barrymore was previously married to Welsh bar owner Jeremy Thomas in March 1994 for just a few weeks. She then married comic Tom Green in July 2001. However, he filed for divorce that December.
