“Bachelor” alum Andrew Firestone has called it quits from his wife, Ivana Firestone, after 17 years of marriage.
“After much reflection and many hours of counseling, we have decided that we can best serve our children and honor that commitment to family by moving forward separately as co-parents,” the Season 3 contestant wrote in a since-deleted Instagram statement over the weekend, per the US Sun.
“While this was not an easy decision, we remain united in raising our children with love, stability, and the values we share.”
Andrew, 50, stated that while he and Ivana, 47, are “no longer a couple,” they are committed to being “a family, cheering from the actual and proverbial sidelines for our children’s — and each other’s — happiness and success.”
“Seventeen years of marriage is an achievement we deeply honor, as it brought us three extraordinary children and forged lifelong, generational bonds and friendships that will always endure,” he concluded.
Ivana, meanwhile, subtly addressed the split with a photo of herself lounging outdoors on Sunday, captioning it, “She’s working on three things right now: herself, her life, her future. She is ME .”
The exes are parents to three kids: Adam, 16, Anja, 14, and Shane, 11.
Andrew and Ivana got engaged at the latter’s 30th birthday party in 2007 and they tied the knot the following year in Santa Barbara, Calif.
The TV personality previously gushed over meeting his estranged wife while out with friends at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles in 2005 during a past interview with Us Weekly, per the US Sun.
He recalled needing to board a flight in three hours when his friends insisted, “There’s a girl you have to meet.”
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“She walks up, stunningly beautiful, and she’s wearing a sweat suit with this big wet mark and she’s laughing and she says, ‘I sat in a puddle.’
“How disarming is it to see this beautiful girl laughing at herself?” Andrew said.
The reality star explained that Ivana was “turned off” by his history in reality TV and didn’t watch his season of “The Bachelor” in 2003.
Ivana, however, also told the outlet that she was impressed by how “genuine” Andrew was.
During Andrew’s season of the dating series, he got engaged to Jen Schefft.
However, the duo split months later, with Andrew revealing that he “was probably a little too young.”
