Robert De Niro and wife Grace Hightower have reportedly split after over 20 years of marriage, according to several reports.
The two have reportedly separated and been living separately for the last few months.
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“They are not living together at this time,” a source close to the couple told Page Six, who was first to report the news.
The Raging Bull actor has reportedly been spotted solo at events that Hightower would normally accompany him to. “De Niro and Grace are breaking up. He’s been at a few things since the very end of summer without her — and the rumor has it they are done,” another source said.
“Sometimes things don’t work out they way you hope or want them to,” a source close to the family told PEOPLE. A representative for De Niro did not respond immediately to the magazine for a comment.
De Niro, 75, married Hightower, 63, in 1997 after dating for 10 years. They share two children together: 20-year-old Elliott and 6-year-old daughter Helen Grace.
This isn’t the longtime couple’s only breakup; De Niro filed for divorce in 1999, two years into their marriage. They reportedly had a custody battle over their son at the time until they eventually resolved their issues; the divorce was never finalized.
Instead, they renewed their vows in 2004 in front of a star-studded crowd in the Catskills. Famous guests included Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, Ben Stiller and Tom Brokaw. At the time, the Taxi Driver actor jokingly referred to his and Hightower’s previous marital issues saying he wanted to “make sure this one sticks.”
The last time the two were seen together was on the red carpet in June at the 72nd Annual Tony Awards in New York City.
The two met when Hightower, a former flight attendant, was working at the famed Mr. Chow in London in 1987. She told The New York Times in 2013 that their early relationship “was an ease-in. It wasn’t a whirlwind.”
She has worked as an actress and singer and founded the java line Coffee of Grace.
De Niro has kept quiet about his personal life to the press, but opened up in the past about raising his children.
“There are great moments and moments of sadness,” he previously told PEOPLE. “Sometimes you’re the last person they want to deal with. It’s like when you walk your kids to school and they get older and they don’t want to hold your hand or kiss you goodbye.”
He revealed in 2016 that his son, Elliot, has autism. “Grace and I have a child with autism and we believe it is critical that all of the issues surrounding the causes of autism be openly discussed and examined,” he said in a statement amid controversy around the planned screening of the anti-vaccination documentary Vaxxed at his Tribeca Film Festival. He later decided to pull the film from the festival’s schedule.
In addition to Elliott and Helen Grace, who he shares with Hightower, De Niro also has four other daughters: daughter Drena, 47, and son Raphael, 42, who he shares with ex-wife Diahnne Abbott; and twin sons Julian and Aaron, 23, born via surrogate with ex-girlfriend Toukie Smith.
He told the Los Angeles Times in 2009 that he’s grateful to have his children in New York. “Everybody’s in New York and, hopefully, my younger kids will go to college in New York and find something they want to do so they’ll stay in the city,” he said. “I like the kids to be around. If they want to go to college here and live at home, I won’t have a problem with that.”
