‘Silicon Valley’ Star Thomas Middleditch and Wife Mollie Gates Break up After Revealing Open Marriage

Thomas Middleditch and his wife Mollie Gates are getting divorced. The couple officially filed divorce papers on Thursday, May 28, with their date of separation listed as May 22 according to a report by PEOPLE. The Silicon Valley star had long been open about his unconventional marriage to Gates.

Middleditch and Gates married in August of 2015, just two months after they were engaged. At the time, Middleditch was still a star on the rise, with a few prominent movie roles under his belt and a newly-obtained leading role on HBO’s Silicon Valley. Gates — three years younger than Middleditch — is a costume designer in Hollywood. The couple really made headlines in September of 2019, however, when Middleditch revealed that they were active swingers.

Middleditch made the revelation in an interview with Playboy, apparently deciding to share the information on the spur of the moment. “I don’t know how much I can say, because I don’t want my wife to be mad at me,” he said at the time. “Only after I got married was I like, ‘Mollie, I’m sorry, but we have to get nontraditional here. To her credit, instead of saying ‘F– you, I’m out,’ she was like, ‘Let’s figure this out.”

At the time, Middleditch said that he believed swinging had “saved” their marriage, since he and Gates had different sexual preferences. He also said that the couple kept things in check by adhering to strict “rules” for their extramarital exploration.

“For anything sexual — whether in terms of the sex act or identity or kink — you want to know where the walls of the box are,” he said. “Mollie and I have created our own rules, and compared to most of the people we’ve met who do this kind of s—, our rules are strict. We’re not off on our own; we’re together, a unit.”

Months after the interview was printed, Middleditch admitted that he regretted sharing so much with the publication. In an episode of The Last Laugh podcast, he said: “To be honest, it’s a thing I wish I could take back. It was poor execution. But I’ve learned to keep things a little more close to the chest. It was a painful [learning experience], to be honest.”

Silicon Valley came to an end last year, but Middleditch has already moved on to new hit shows. He co-stars in a long-form improv comedy series with Ben Schwartz on Netflix, which is simply called Middleditch and Schwartz. He also has a leading role in the new animated sci-fi comedy Solar Opposites on Hulu, featuring some of the same creators as Rick and Morty. Both shows are streaming now.