Ben Harper, Laura Dern Split

The stars are reportedly divorcing after five years of marriage.
By Mawuse Ziegbe

Laura Dern and Ben Harper
Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Actress Laura Dern and singer Ben Harper are reportedly ending their five-year union. The folk-rock singer served the "Jurassic Park" actress divorce papers on Friday afternoon, according to TMZ.

The Grammy-winning artist has cited irreconcilable differences, and the website reports that although Harper and Dern have been living together recently, the singer claims the pair separated in January. Harper is looking to split custody of their two children. Harper and Dern got hitched in a Los Angeles mansion in 2005 surrounded by 150 guests.

Although Harper will be heading back into the singles scene, the musician told MTV News in 2006 that he would love for future couples to use his music as the soundtrack to their nuptials.

"I hope in the long term, a hundred years from now, someone might be walking down the aisle to it. That would mean a lot to me," the rocker admitted of the track, "Happy Ever After in Your Eyes," from his seventh LP, Both Sides of the Gun. Harper dropped the album months after he walked down the aisle with Dern.

In addition to the changes in his personal life, Harper has some new projects bubbling on the professional front as well. The musician just released the album As I Call You Down as a member of the group Fistful of Mercy, alongside musicians Joseph Arthur and son of the Beatles' George Harrison, Dhani Harrison. The trio will also kick off a tour in November, which includes sold-out stops in Seattle, San Francisco and Washington, DC. The group is also slated to play New York's famed Apollo Theater, a venue that Harper is familiar with from a 2004 gig with the Blind Boys of Alabama.

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