After eight years of marriage, Alexis Bledel and Vincent Kartheiser called it quits due in part to a degree of “social isolation” in their lives.
Bledel, 40, and Kartheiser, 43, have not made a public appearance together in “years,” which a source exclusively reveals in the latest issue of Us Weekly, noting that their growing distance “certainly played a part” in their decision to separate.
Us Weekly broke the news last month that the former Mad Man costars split after eight years of marriage, with Kartheiser filing for divorce. Less than one week later, there was already a submission for a proposed judgment and settlement.
“They didn’t have a huge circle of friends but they both made up for it with very thriving and busy careers — almost to a fault,” the insider adds of what led to the pair’s breakup. “Vincent has always been a little bit of a lone wolf and he’s going to benefit from time on his own.”
The twosome began dating in 2012 shortly after connecting on the set of Mad Man. They got engaged nearly one year later ahead of their 2014 nuptials. The Gilmore Girls alum quietly gave birth to the pair’s first child, a son, in 2015.
“She’s really blossomed as a woman and now she’s a proud new mother and married and happy,” her Gilmore Girls costar Scott Patterson previously told Glamour in May 2016, revealing Bledel’s baby news. “We’re comparing notes because my son [Nick] is about a year and a half older than her young son. I’m showing her photos and videos and what to expect. We’re just really enjoying each other’s company.”
Through the years, Bledel and the Titans alum kept their romance notably private.
“It’s something I realized about the most important things in my life. If I share them with the world and I open that door to their fuming anger that they need to get out or their adoration that they want to flaunt, it lessens it,” Kartheiser told Vulture in 2014. “It cheapens it. It weakens it. And it’s magical, love, and all of that is … profoundly spiritual, and it just doesn’t feel right.”
As the former couple balanced two thriving acting careers with raising their son, their differences became even more apparent.
“Alexis is a little eccentric herself but compared to Vinnie, she’s incredibly normal,” the insider explains. “For starters, Vinnie lives life by an unbreakable code of being humble and following a low-consumption lifestyle. That’s something he’s credited as helping him survive the crazy world of starting out as a child actor and that’s part of what drew Alexis to him — he was different.”
Watch the video above for more details on why the Handmaid’s Tale alum and Kartheiser decided to break up — and pick up the latest Us Weekly issue on newsstands now.
