Johnny Depp, the celebrated actor and People magazine’s “sexiest man alive”, has separated from his French actress partner, Vanessa Paradis with whom he had two children, 13-year-old Lily and nine-year-old Jack.

“Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis have amicably separated. Please respect their privacy and, more importantly, the privacy of their children,” Depp’s publicist Robin Baum announced in a statement.

Depp and Paradis got together in 1998, when they met in Costes Hotel in Paris while acting in the Roman Polanski film, The Ninth Gate.

The couple never married, though Depp had got married to Lori Anne Allison between 1983 and 1985, had a high-profile engagement to Winona Ryder and a long term relationship with Kate Moss.

Paradis, on the other hand, had just come out of a relationship with Stanislas Merhar, the French-Slovenian actor and reportedly had previously been engaged to singer Lenny Kravitz.

Even last month, the Pirates of the Caribbean actor denied claims of rift between him and Paradis. “The rumours are not true. They are absolutely not true. No matter what I say about this, people believe the opposite. I can’t say enough about it not being over,” proclaimed Depp.

Paradis also remarked on a French chat show, “People say we are buying houses in the middle of nowhere, or that we have fifty two houses in France. And that is along with saying we split up every winter and get married every summer, and that I’m on my twelfth pregnancy.”

However, the two were reported to have been living separate lives from months. While Vanessa was found hunting properties in Beverley Hills at the end of May, Johnny was seen alone, hopping onto a jet on his way to New Mexico, two weeks back.

Reasons for the split can be career obligations forcing the two to be distant from each other or, what rumour has, that Depp had a fling with his The Rum Diaries co-star Amber Heard who was seen boarding Johnny’s private jet to Las Vegas in April.