Chris Pratt and Anna Faris have, for a very long time, been one of the internet’s favourite couples. Over the years, they’ve shared selfies, and videos, and fun anecdotes about one another with their online fans – and, just a few months ago, Pratt stood up to give a heartfelt speech about the woman who gave him “the greatest star in the galaxy”.

So, when they announced their separation late on Sunday night (6 August), many were shocked – and it wasn’t long before the news was trending worldwide on Twitter.

Read more: Chris Pratt just honoured his wife Anna Faris in a beautiful speech

“Anna and I are sad to announce we are legally separating. We tried hard for a long time, and we’re really disappointed,” Pratt wrote in a statement on Facebook.

“Our son has two parents who love him very much and for his sake we want to keep this situation as private as possible moving forward.”

The couple first met in 2007 on the set of their film, Take Me Home Tonight. Two years later, they were married – and their beloved son Jack was born in 2012.

Things have certainly changed since then, though: over the last few years, Pratt has become a huge Hollywood star, thanks to his turns in Guardians of the Galaxy, The LEGO Movie, Jurassic World, and Passengers. And Faris, speaking openly in her podcast, Anna Faris is Unqualified, has admitted that her husband’s sudden fame had put a strain on their marriage.

“We grapple with the idea of being a public couple,” she said in December. “There were some tabloid rumours about strain on our relationship.

“I just remember feeling so hurt in a way that bothered me because I didn't want to think of myself as somebody that could be affected by tabloid s**t. There was a picture of me walking alone on the beach: ‘Ageing Anna Faris, Alone on the Beach.’”

Read more: What the minor Friends stars are doing now

Faris continued: “I take pride in how great my relationship is with Chris, but having said that, of course, in this crazy world where he’s off doing movies and I’m in L.A. raising our child, of course I’m going to feel vulnerable, like any normal human would…

“And it did make me feel like, "Is public perception—even though it's false—is there a grain of something?' It made me feel incredibly insecure.”

Pratt recently told Entertainment Weekly that his intense filming schedules have kept him away from Faris and their son.

“From his seventh month to his 13th month, I saw him twice,” he shared.

“It’s tough. Anna told me his first sentence was ‘Dada’s working’. I wonder how old he’s going to be when his sentence is ‘Dada needs to get a job.”’

The actor added that he has found all the recent changes in his life to be simultaneously exciting and unsettling, saying: “It feels like something seismic. When an earthquake happens, at first you’re like, ‘Is this really happening?’ And then you’re just holding on for dear life. I’m just trying to get under a doorway.

“[But] I used to live in a van and worked at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. So now if I ever f**king complain about fame, please find me and kick me in the balls.”

Faris, like Pratt, has shared a heartfelt statement about her separation from her husband to her own Instagram page.

“We still have love for each other, will always cherish our time together and continue to have the deepest respect for one another,” she writes.

Images: Rex Features