Bijou Phillips and Danny Masterson.
Photo: Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Actor and model Bijou Phillips has filed divorce from Danny Masterson after the That ’70s Show actor was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison for raping two women. “Ms. Phillips has decided to file for divorce from her husband at this unfortunate time,” attorney Peter Lauzon said in a statement, per CBS News. “Her priority remains with her daughter. This period has been unimaginably hard on the marriage and the family.” Lauzon added that Phillips “acknowledges that Mr. Masterson is a wonderful father to their daughter.” The divorce is surprising considering Phillips’s stance in the immediate aftermath of the trial — she told People she had “no plans” to split from Masterson less than two weeks ago. A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge sentenced Masterson on September 7 after he was found guilty of two counts of rape that occurred 20 years ago during a time when Masterson was at the height of his That ’70s Show fame. Phillips and Masterson met in 2005 and tied the knot in 2011. The actor’s rape accusations emerged in 2017 following more than a decade of the Scientology Church allegedly silencing Masterson’s victims. Ahead of the sentencing, Phillips and other Hollywood friends, including Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis, wrote letters to the judge in support of Masterson with the intention of reducing the actor’s jail time. “I can say that Danny has literally been a life-saving partner to me,” her letter read. “The man I married has only been an extraordinary husband to me and a devoted father to our daughter.”
