Tim Burton and Monica Bellucci Announce Split After 2 Years Together

It’s over for Tim Burton and Monica Bellucci. 

The 67-year-old writer and director and the 60-year-old Italian actress and model announced their split in a joint statement on Friday, Sept. 19. 

“It is with much respect and deep care for each other that Monica Bellucci and Tim Burton have decided to part ways,” the former couple said in a joint statement to the AFP.

PEOPLE has reached out to Burton and Bellucci for comment. 

The exes first met on the red carpet at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival in France — but it was a brief meeting, when both were in long-term relationships with other people at the time. 

They later reconnected in 2022 when Bellucci presented Burton with a Lumière Award at the Lumière Festival in France. 

Shortly after they sparked romance rumors as they were seen walking arm-in-arm in Madrid, Spain. But they didn’t confirm their romance publicly until they attended the Rome Film Festival together in October 2023. 

Burton attended the event to support Bellucci at the premiere of her film Maria Callas: Lettere e Memorie. Coverage of the event described Burton as “so in love and happy,” according to The Independent.

“What I can say … I’m glad I met the man, first of all,” Bellucci told Elle France in June 2023, just after news broke that Burton had cast her in the highly anticipated sequel to the iconic 1988 film Beetlejuice. “It’s one of those encounters that rarely happens in life … I know the man, I love him and now I’m going to meet the director — another adventure begins.”

Burton cast Bellucci as the villainous Delores in 2024’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. 

Prior to his romance with Bellucci, Burton was in a long-term relationship with actress Helena Bonham Carter from 2001 to 2014. The former couple welcomed son Billy in 2003, and daughter Nell in 2007. They collaborated on numerous projects together, including Sweeney Todd, Dark Shadows, Alice in Wonderland, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and more. 

Though they were never married, when the relationship ended, Bonham Carter described it as “a divorce.”

“I went through a very painful divorce,” she said in 2022 on the podcast Therapy Works. “It was a long-lasting thing. That’s the other thing, it’s not that finite. It never ends. Even if you divorce somebody, it’s a kind of marriage if you have children with them. The relationship has to change. It’s a very complicated thing how to share the children.”

Bellucci married French actor Vincent Cassel (from Oceans 12 and Oceans 13) in 1999. The couple welcomed daughter Deva Cassel in 2004, and daughter Léonie Cassel in 2010. Bellucci and Vincent split in 2013.