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Today We Mourn the Separation of Michelle Williams and Her Husband, Phil Elverum

Michelle Williams. Photo: MIKE COPPOLA/Getty Images

It was too good to be true. We invested too much, too soon, and today we cope with the cold reality of this world: Michelle Williams and her husband, Phil Elverum of the band Mount Eerie, have separated. The Hollywood Reporter relayed the news. It was just last summer that Williams, making the very rare decision to open up about her personal life, confirmed that she and Elverum got married in a mostly secret ceremony in the Adirondacks. Our hearts were healed by her candor with Vanity Fair.

“I never gave up on love,” she later tells me, saying that she has spent the 10 years since Ledger’s death looking for the kind of “radical acceptance” she felt from him. “I always say to Matilda, ‘Your dad loved me before anybody thought I was talented, or pretty, or had nice clothes.’” I can hear her voice crack. She sometimes can’t believe that she’s found this kind of love, at last. “Obviously I’ve never once in my life talked about a relationship,” she says, “but Phil isn’t anyone else. And that’s worth something. Ultimately the way he loves me is the way I want to live my life on the whole. I work to be free inside of the moment. I parent to let Matilda feel free to be herself, and I am finally loved by someone who makes me feel free.”

But according to an unnamed source, Williams and Elverum made the “amicable” decision to separate earlier this year. Nothing is good, and we hope you send your best thoughts to all parties involved at this time. And don’t be afraid to cry it out in that specific office bathroom you do all your private crying in.

Michelle Williams and Her Husband, Phil Elverum, Have Split