Sacha Baron Cohen and Isla Fisher are getting divorced. The couple announced on their respective Instagram Stories that they had filed for divorce in 2023 and were sharing the news now.
“After a long tennis match lasting over twenty years, we are finally putting our racquets down,” their matching statements read over a photo of them in tennis outfits. “In 2023 we jointly filed to end our marriage.”
“We have always prioritized our privacy, and have been quietly working through this change,” the statement continued. “We forever share in our devotion and love for our children. We sincerely appreciate your respecting our family’s wish for privacy.”
Cohen and Fisher met at a party in 2000 in Sydney. In an interview with The New York Times, the Borat star recalled their first encounter, noting, “She was hilarious. We were at a very pretentious party, and me and her bonded over taking the mick out of the other people in the party. I knew instantly. I don’t know if she did.”
The two got engaged in 2004 and announced they were expecting their first child in 2007. They tied the knot in Paris in March 2010 and welcomed their second daughter that summer. They had their third child and first son in 2015.
The news of Cohen and Fisher’s split comes on the heels of Rebel Wilson calling the Dictator actor an “asshole” and said he tried to stop her from writing about him in her memoir, Rebel Rising. The two starred alongside each other in The Brothers Grimsby.
“It felt like every time I’d speak to SBC, he’d mention that he wanted me to go naked in a future scene, I was like, ‘Ha, I don’t do nudity, Sacha,'” Wilson recalled in her memoir.
She added that a production assistant told her that she needed to film an additional scene for the film, which Cohen co-wrote and produced. When they were shooting, he allegedly “pulls his pants down … SBC says very matter-of-factly: ‘Okay, now I want you to stick your finger up my ass.’ And I’m like, ‘What?? … No!!’ I was now scared. I wanted to get out of there, so I finally compromised: I slapped him on the ass and improvised a few lines as the character.”
Cohen denied Wilson’s allegations in a statement by his rep shared with The Hollywood Reporter that read, “While we appreciate the importance of speaking out, these demonstrably false claims are directly contradicted by extensive detailed evidence, including contemporaneous documents, film footage, and eyewitness accounts from those present before, during and after the production of The Brothers Grimsby.”
New details of Sasha Baron Cohen and Isla Fisher’s divorce timeline are coming to light. Cohen, 52, and Fisher, 48, submitted a divorce application in England in September 2023, an officer for the court confirms to Us Weekly. The exes used the online divorce portal for England and Wales, which is the central portal used by those seeking to legally end a marriage in the U.K.
The officer for the court also notes that Cohen and Fisher filed joint paperwork three months after the initial filing to declare that their marriage had broken down irretrievably. The pair’s case is still ongoing and inching closer to conclusion, with the former couple applying for a conditional order, which in the UK precedes a final order.
According to the officer for the court, once the court signs off on the conditional order, Cohen and Fisher have to wait six weeks before applying for final order. Us Weekly has reached out to Cohen and Fisher for comment.
Cohen and Fisher announced their separation in April after 14 years of marriage. “After a long tennis match lasting over twenty years, we are finally putting our racquets down,” read a joint Instagram statement shared by the duo. “In 2023 we jointly filed to end our marriage. We have always prioritized our privacy and have been quietly working through this change.”
Fisher and Cohen, who wed in 2010, share three children. “We forever share in our devotion and love for our children. We sincerely appreciate your respecting our family’s wish for privacy,” the statement concluded.
The news of Cohen and Fisher’s split made headlines after Rebel Wilson accused the actor of misconduct in her memoir, Rebel Rising, earlier this year. Cohen has denied Wilson’s accusations. However, an insider exclusively told Us at the time that Wilson’s allegations had “nothing to do” with Cohen and Fisher’s breakup.
“They have been living separate lives since last year but wanted to give this space and time for their children to be OK with this before the news came out and they got all this attention,” a source revealed in April. “They are notoriously very private people and wanted to focus on their family.”
After news broke of their breakup, multiple sources told Us that Fisher and Cohen were “at odds,” bitterly fighting over their respective professional commitments and family responsibilities.
Neither Cohen nor Fisher have publicly addressed what led to their separation. An additional insider recalled seeing the duo having a “heated argument” in Hollywood over their conflicting filming schedules, promotional tours and childcare demands.
One month later, Fisher took to social media to thank her followers for their “kindness and support” while she navigated this new transitional period in her life.
Sacha Baron Cohen has been spotted for the first time since he and Isla Fisher announced their divorce. The actor and comedian, 52, was photographed out and about in New York City on Thursday, April 11, dressed in a hunter-green sweater, light-colored trousers and white sneakers. He also wore a tan fedora and black-framed glasses.
Baron Cohen’s outing comes six days after he and Fisher, 48, announced on social media that they had “jointly filed to end [their] marriage” last year. “After a long tennis match lasting over twenty years, we are finally putting our racquets down,” the pair said in statements shared on their Instagram Stories April 5, alongside a photo of themselves posing in tennis garb.
“We have always prioritized our privacy, and have been quietly working through this change,” the former couple added. “We forever share in our devotion and love for our children. We sincerely appreciate your respecting our family’s wish for privacy.”
After Fisher and Baron Cohen announced that they were ending their marriage, a source told PEOPLE that the Borat star “had been talking to divorce lawyers in the summer of 2023.”
The source added that it wasn’t the first time the pair had explored a possible split, with Baron Cohen and the Wedding Crashers actress also reaching out to divorce lawyers “several years prior.”
Fisher and Baron Cohen first met at a 2001 party in Sydney, years before either actor gained attention for their work onscreen. In a 2020 interview with The New York Times, Baron Cohen recalled that his then-wife “was hilarious” from the moment they met.
The former couple share three children: two daughters and a son, whom they welcomed in 2007, 2010 and 2015, respectively. Baron Cohen and Fisher have always remained private about their personal lives and have not revealed their children’s names.
On Monday, April 8, another insider told PEOPLE that Fisher and Baron Cohen “worked” well as a couple for a long time prior to announcing their divorce, after over 13 years of marriage.
“They were certainly never your typical Hollywood couple,” the insider continued of the pair. “Although they are both famous and rich, they have never acted snobby and stuck-up. In many ways, they were always an odd couple.”
“It just worked for them though,” the insider added. “[Isla] always found [Sacha] hilarious and didn’t mind his quirky personality. Isla has always had his back.”
Baron Cohen has also made headlines recently after Rebel Wilson wrote in her new memoir Rebel Rising that she felt harassed and humiliated by Baron Cohen on the set of the 2016 movie The Brothers Grimsby. Baron Cohen vehemently denied the allegations.
A rep for the actor told PEOPLE, “While we appreciate the importance of speaking out, these demonstrably false claims are directly contradicted by extensive detailed evidence, including contemporaneous documents, film footage and eyewitness accounts from those present before, during and after the production of The Brothers Grimsby.”
Source: Us Weekly, PEOPLE, The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter
