Jack White and Olivia Jean are going to be (just) friends. The couple is calling it quits after more than four years of marriage.
According to court documents reviewed by TMZ, Jean filed for divorce on June 3 in Nashville, and cited the same date as their date of separation. The petition alleged that White was “guilty of inappropriate marital conduct, which makes further cohabitation unsafe and improper.”
In Tennessee, “inappropriate marital conduct” is a commonly cited ground in a fault-based petition for divorce. Although the official statute defines this as a spouse being guilty of “cruel and inhuman treatment or conduct,” legal experts at the Hoffman Law and Mediation Office note that the actual behaviors qualifying under the law serve as a general catch-all.
This is White’s third marriage, and divorce, as the former White Stripes frontman was previously married to Stripes drummer Meg White and model-singer-songwriter Karen Elson.
The split comes more than four years after Jean, also a musician, married White onstage, mid-performance, in Detroit. “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s been such a beautiful day, I’m thinking why don’t we just do this right now and get married right now?” White said before asking Jean’s father, Brent Markel, who was in attendance, if the couple had his blessing.
“Yes,” said Markel, hugging White.
Then White called his Third Man Records co-founder, “Minister Ben Swank,” onstage to perform the nuptials, and the pair said their “I do’s” to thunderous applause from the crowd.
In July 2022, Jean told the New York Times that it was the best experience of her life. “You could plan a wedding for five years and it wouldn’t compare to that.”
For the record:
9:19 p.m. June 23, 2026An earlier version of this story referred to a quote from Jean in a June 22 New York Times article. The article was published in July 2022.
