Chris Pratt and Anna Faris—one of those rare celebrity couples whose relationship seemed based in genuine human affection rather than shared ambitions, and whose affable presence had an affable, inclusive air that allowed you to delude yourself into thinking that, if you only knew them, you’d definitely be friends—are separating, the pair announced yesterday. Pratt and Faris issued a joint statement on their separation through their social media accounts, which the world woke up to today and felt impalpably sad about. “Whaaat,” the world said, emitting a low whistle. “That’s a shame.”
“We are sad to announce we are legally separating,” the statement reads. “We tried hard for a long time, and we’re really disappointed. Our son has two parents who love him very much and for his sake we want to keep this situation as private as possible moving forward. We still love each other and will always cherish our time together.”
Pratt and Faris met while working together on 2007’s Take Me Home Tonight, beginning a tentative courtship complicated by the fact that Faris was married. Over the years, their relationship was marked by frequent, gushy public declarations of love for each other typified by a 2014 Esquire interview where Pratt described them as “twin souls”—both having unknowingly grown up 20 minutes from each other in Washington, both having parents with MS, both bearing scars on their left hands, both given to obsessive planning, both into collecting dead bugs.
They married in 2009 and had one son, Jack. They spent the past near-decade taking goofy-cute red carpet photos and saying adorable things about each other, proving an exemplar true love in an industry whose demands, temptations, and relentless scrutiny are designed to destroy it for entertainment’s sake. But love, as we are reminded time and again, is not always enough.
In response to this profound reminder of the fragility of even our deepest human bonds, the world somberly tweeted that Anchorman GIF where Ron Burgundy cries in a phone booth.