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Danielle Spencer struggled with ‘overwhelming’ marriage to Russell Crowe

Australian entertainment power couple, Russell Crowe and Danielle Spencer have separated after nine years of marriage, according to reports.
Russell Crowe and Danielle Spencer

Australian entertainment power couple, Russell Crowe and Danielle Spencer have separated after nine years of marriage, according to reports.

In what has been described by representatives of the pair as an “amicable parting”, the Oscar-winning actor and his musician wife are believed to have agreed to go their separate ways.

Crowe’s manager told The Weekly the actor had no comment to make at this time.

The actor, currently in the US filming the biblical epic, Noah met his wife on the set of the Aussie film, The Crossing in 1990. They married in March 2003 in a ceremony on Crowe’s property near Coffs Harbour.

Sources report the high-profile couple’s main concern is the welfare of their two sons, Charlie, 8 and Tennyson, 6.

Spencer lives in Sydney with the couple’s two sons. Crowe has spent much of the past year overseas, working on back-to-back films including the upcoming Les Miserables, Man With The Iron Fist and Blue Steel.

The split comes only months after speculation Spencer had become close to her Dancing With The Stars co-star, Damian Whitewood.

In a recent interview with The Australian Women’s Weekly, Spencer admitted she had always struggled with her husband’s high-profile, and the attention it garnered.

“I found the whole wedding followed by the baby, all in quick succession, and the accompanying attention kind of disconcerting,” she said of the couple’s 2003 marriage.

“I just didn’t want any attention on me. I wanted to hide away and be a mother for a couple of years. It was overwhelming. I wanted to just fly well and truly under the radar for a while. When Charlie was first born, we had a couple of security issues and I was more or less hotel-bound in Toronto. There was a price on getting a photo of Charlie, which made it very intimidating to even go out for a walk.

“Each time I ventured out, we’d be attacked by a swarm of photographers, which, as a new mother, made my hackles rise and just made life completely claustrophobic. I didn’t like that phase of our lives at all – I couldn’t get out and be normal. And I like to be out and be normal. I like to sit in a cafe and observe people. I don’t want to be observed.”

The couple had just recently bought $10 million mansion in the Sydney suburb of Rose Bay.

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