Donald Trump Jr., wife headed for divorce after 12 years

Donald Trump Jr.'s wife took legal steps on Thursday to formally end their 12-year marriage, and the couple issued a statement saying they're going their separate ways but "will always have tremendous respect for each other and our families."

Vanessa Trump, a former model, listed the breakup as "uncontested" in a state Supreme Court divorce complaint filing that is secret except for the title of the case.

FILE - In this Jan. 20, 2017 file photo, Donald Trump Jr., wife Vanessa Trump, and their children Donald Trump III, left, and Kai Trump, right, walk out together after attending church service at St. John's Episcopal Church across from the White House in Washington.(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

The Trumps, each 40 years old, were married in 2005 and have five children. Their first child, a girl born in 2007, made a grandfather of Donald Trump a decade before he became president.

In a statement issued through The Trump Organization, where Donald Trump Jr. is an executive, the couple said in part: "After 12 years of marriage, we have decided to go our separate ways. ... We have five beautiful children together and they remain our top priority."

The divorce filing comes as Trump Jr. has emerged as a central figure in at least one focus point of the special counsel's investigation into Trump ties to Russia: a June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower involving a Russian lawyer and top campaign aides that, according to Trump Jr.'s emails, he accepted after being promised dirt on Hillary Clinton, Trump's Democratic rival.

Trump Jr. was an enthusiastic mainstay on the campaign trail during his father's 2016 march to the Republican presidential nomination and then the presidency and now co-runs the family business with his brother Eric Trump, overseeing a global empire that includes hotels, golf courses and a winery.

FILE - In this Feb. 28, 2017 file photo, Donald Trump Jr. jokingly plays with scissors as his wife Vanessa laughs at the grand opening of the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Vancouver, Canada.  (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

He is a popular GOP fundraising draw and has expressed political ambitions of his own, though he has drawn criticism for peddling online right-wing and alt-right memes.

Vanessa Trump's engagement and marriage to Trump Jr. had been a subject of tabloid fascination in New York long before her father-in-law, who has been divorced twice and married three times, entered politics.

At the time of their engagement, there were unflattering stories about how Trump Jr. had accepted a free diamond ring from a jewelry merchant in New Jersey in exchange for staging a recreation of his wedding proposal outside the store for reporters and TV cameras.

But soon, Trump Jr.'s name was more often associated publicly with his appearances alongside his father on "The Apprentice" or as a judge at beauty pageants.

A profile on the couple by The New York Times in 2006 reflected the lightheartedness and pressures of the pair's early days and led Trump Jr. to reflect on the spotlight that fell on his father anytime the family business soured or he confronted divorce.

"Sometimes being a Trump, everyone kind of wants to see you fail," Trump Jr. told the newspaper.

The article said Vanessa Haydon Trump grew up in a town house on Manhattan's Upper East Side, and it recalled her amusement at their initial 2003 meeting when Donald Trump introduced himself and his son to her, only to return later and say: "I don't think you've met my son Donald Trump Jr." The Times quoted Vanessa Trump as responding: "Yeah, we just met, five minutes ago."

When the young couple met again at a party six weeks later, they didn't remember the earlier meeting until they talked for an hour and Vanessa Trump suddenly recalled that encounter, the newspaper said.

Last month, Vanessa Trump opened a letter to her husband containing an unidentified white powder and was briefly hospitalized as a precaution, but the substance turned out to be nonhazardous. A Massachusetts man later was charged with sending the threatening letter.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Britney Spears and Sam Asghari are officially divorced and single.

The dissolution of the couple’s marriage was finalized Friday by a Los Angeles County judge, nearly two years after the two were married.

The judgment comes hours after the 42-year-old pop superstar and the 30-year-old model and actor informed the court that they had reached a divorce settlement, and a week after Spears reached a court settlement with her father over lingering issues in her conservatorship.

The couple filed court papers Thursday and Friday saying they had reached an agreement on dividing their assets. Few details were made public, but neither Spears nor Asghari will get future spousal support. Asghari had said in his initial petition that he would seek financial support. Any future disputes would need to be settled in private arbitration.

Spears and Asghari separated in July, and he filed for divorce in August. They had been dating for about seven years.

The two had no children together, so no custody agreement was necessary. Spears wrote in her memoir published last year that she and Asghari had a miscarriage early in a pregnancy about a month before they married.

Emails seeking details or comment from lawyers for both Spears and Asghari were not immediately returned.

Their marriage at her home in June 2022 in front of guests including Selena Gomez, Drew Barrymore, Paris Hilton and Madonna was seen as a triumphant milestone in her newly reclaimed life after she was freed a few months earlier from the court conservatorship that controlled her life and money for more than 13 years.

But they would split just over a year later.

Last Friday, Spears and her father, Jamie Spears, reached a settlement on the lingering issues from that legal arrangement, avoiding what could have been a long, ugly and revealing trial that was scheduled to start later this month.

Spears has said little publicly of the split.

In an Instagram post soon after the divorce filing, she said, “I’m not here to explain why because its honestly nobody’s business !!! But, I couldn’t take the pain anymore honestly !!!”

In her memoir, “ The Woman in Me,” released two months after Asghari filed for divorce, Spears speaks only briefly and positively of Asghari. She describes him holding her hand while she addressed a judge remotely during a key hearing that helped end her conservatorship.

Like the vast majority of those who file for divorce in California, Asghari cited irreconcilable differences as the reason for the split.

It was the third marriage for Spears. She has two teenage sons with previous husband Kevin Federline, to whom she was married from 2004 to 2007, a time when intense media scrutiny led to emotional difficulty for her.

Spears was married for less than three days in 2004 to childhood friend Jason Alexander, who attempted to crash her wedding to Asghari and was later convicted of misdemeanor trespassing and battery.

Spears met and began dating Asghari, a model and actor, when he appeared in her video for the song “Slumber Party” in 2016.

She cited her desire to marry him as among the reasons she wanted an end to the constraining conservatorship, which she said was preventing it. The two announced their engagement in September of 2021.

Since the conservatorship ended, Spears has put out music, including a collaboration with Elton John in 2022. But she has not performed live in years, and she said she has no intention of performing or making a new album.

Jamie Spears, father of singer Britney Spears, leaves the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in Los Angeles on Oct. 24, 2012, left, and Britney Spears arrives at the Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas on May 17, 2015. (AP Photo)

FILE - Britney Spears and Sam Asghari appear at the Los Angeles premiere of "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" on July 22, 2019. Spears has reached a divorce settlement with her soon-to-be-ex-husband Asghari. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)