Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch and owner of Chelsea FC, has separated from his wife of ten years, Dasha Zhukova, in what the couple described as an amicable separation. They have two children.
In a joint statement, they said: “After 10 years together, the two of us have made the difficult decision to separate, but we remain close friends, parents and partners in the projects we developed together.”
” We are committed to jointly raising our two children. We will also continue to work together as co-founders of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow and the New Holland Island cultural center in Saint Petersburg.”
Ms Zhukova, an art collector, is the independently wealthy daughter of a Russian oil magnate, was Mr Abramovich’s third wife. The couple were first spotted together in 2005 at a Chelsea-Barcelona game in Spain and were secretly married around nine years ago. Ms Zhukova, 36, had always been referred to as his girlfriend but in 2015, she revealed in a magazine interview that the couple, in fact, tied the knot during a private ceremony in 2008.
Their first child, Mr Abramovich’s sixth, Aaron Alexander, was born in December 2009 and daughter Leah Lou was born in April 2013, both in the United States.
