Alan and Catherine Ritchson have announced they are separating after 20 years together. The couple, who met as teenagers at a ballet class in Florida when she was 16 and he was 17, married in May 2006 and share three sons: Calem, Edan, and Amory. Alan has since become one of TV’s biggest stars as the lead in Reacher, with an upcoming role in Nicholas Sparks’Counting Miracles, while Catherine has built her own platform through the podcast The Road to Wisdom and the Instagram series Not Newlyweds.
In their September 2026 statement, the couple said they have decided to end their marriage and continue alongside one another in a different way. They emphasized that the best gift they can give each other and their boys right now is friendship, grace, and a commitment to becoming the strongest coparents they can be. The announcement struck a chord with fans who watched the pair’s relationship unfold across two decades, from Alan’s early days on Blue Mountain State to his current leading-man era.
Their approach to the split, prioritizing friendship and family over headlines, offers a modern model for how public separations can be handled with dignity. As Catherine has explored throughout her podcast and social series, building lasting love takes work, and sometimes that work evolves into something new. What do you think about how they’re handling it? Let us know in the comments.
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Local Lawton
Local Lawton is a contributor to LocalBeat, covering local news and community stories.