Washington - In 2014, Scarlett Johansson had a daughter, who she named Rose Dorothy. Then she married Rose’s father, Romain Dauriac, a former journalist who now works as an art show curator in New York City.
“I love his brain more than anything,” she told People at the time. “He does all the sweet gestures for me. He’s a gentleman.”
From afar, things seemed to be going well. Last October, the couple opened Yummy Pop, a gourmet popcorn store, in Paris. But appearances can be deceiving. Johansson and Dauriac were separated months before the store’s opening. In January, People reported that they had been separated since the summer.
On Tuesday, Johansson filed for divorce in New York, where the two primarily reside, saying the marriage was “irretrievably broken”. She seeks joint custody of Rose but wants the child to live with her.
Dauriac’s lawyer, Hal Mayerson, said that Dauriac was “shocked” by the filing, and views it as a “pre-emptive strike” in a potential custody battle.
Furthermore, Mayerson said Dauriac has been the “primary parent” for Rose while Johansson worked on her career. “Mr Dauriac is tired of having to run his life and his child’s life based on Ms Johansson’s shooting schedule,” Mayerson said.
Johansson was less forthcoming, offering the following statement to news outlets:
“As a devoted mother and private person and with complete awareness that my daughter will one day be old enough to read the news about herself, I would only like to say that I will never, ever be commenting on the dissolution of my marriage. Out of respect for my desires as a parent and out of respect for all working moms, it is with kindness that I ask other parties involved and the media to do the same.”
“We never had any intention of filing papers, we did not want to make it a public spectacle,” Mayerson told USA Today. “Now she or her lawyers or her handlers have made it a public spectacle She filed, so for her to ask for privacy now seems somewhat oxymoronic to me - it makes no sense.
“It’s not in her daughter’s interest to file in the public court system,” Mayerson added.
Johansson hasn’t spoken much about her child over the years. Though, when asked by Playboy in February if she was based in New York or Paris, she responded: “We still mix it up. My job takes me all over the place, so I don’t even know where I live, but I guess now we’re kind of committed to living here because with our daughter we have to commit to some place. She’ll be in school in a hot minute. The time passes like crazy.”
Johansson has been outspoken on her views on marriage and monogamy.
“I don’t think human beings are monogamous creatures by nature,” she said while promoting Woody Allen’s Match Point in 2006.
In an interview with Playboy in February, she called “the idea of marriage” “very romantic” and a “beautiful idea”. But, she continued: “I don’t think it’s natural to be a monogamous person.
“I might be skewered for that, but I think it’s work. It’s a lot of work It’s something I have a lot of respect for and have participated in, but I think it definitely goes against some instinct to look beyond.”
Before Dauriac, she was married to fellow actor Ryan Reynolds from 2008 to 2011.