Danny DeVito, now 81, says he and estranged wife Rhea Perlman are "always" together for family meals and grandchildren, yet neither has any interest in filing for divorce.
In a recent interview with AARP, DeVito offered a window into one of Hollywood's most unusual domestic arrangements. He and Perlman, 78, have lived apart since their second separation in March 2017, but they talk daily, gather weekly with their children and grandchildren, and appear to have settled into a rhythm that suits them both, legal paperwork aside.
Page Six reported on the AARP sit-down, in which DeVito described the arrangement in plainspoken terms.
"We're always over at her house. We see the grandchildren together, that kind of stuff. So that's a good relationship."
No lawyers. No courtroom drama. No tabloid custody fight. Just two people who spent four decades together and decided that living apart beat blowing up the family.
DeVito and Perlman met in New York in 1971. They moved in together two weeks later. They married in 1982 and went on to share three children, Lucy, Grace, and Jacob, and a string of professional collaborations, including the 1996 film "Matilda," in which they played the title character's parents.
Their first split came in October 2012, after more than 30 years of marriage. They reconciled the following year. The second separation, in March 2017, stuck, at least in terms of living arrangements. But the marriage certificate has stayed intact.
Perlman, best known for her long run on "Cheers," explained the logic during a 2019 appearance on "Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen."
"Danny and I have always loved each other and we have three amazing children together and we really agree on almost everything important and so, you know, we were together for 40 years."
Asked about divorce, she was direct.
"That's not in the picture... what for? We do live separately. We see each other a lot, too."
She added that the arrangement had actually improved things between them, saying it was "much better because all the tense stuff is gone."
Perlman acknowledged on the same 2019 broadcast that the transition was hard on the family at first. But she framed the outcome as a success measured by relationships, not legal status.
"It's not in your face. I'm not in his face. He's not in mine... there was a hard transition through the kids and everything, but everybody's got a good relationship with Danny and with me and with each other, and that's all we care about."
She also offered a line that could serve as a bumper sticker for anyone who has survived a long marriage: "Forty years is a long time! You might have to do something else! It's OK!"
The couple was spotted dining together at a restaurant in Chelsea in 2019, a detail that tracked with both of their public descriptions of the relationship, separated on paper, together at the dinner table.
DeVito's career itself started with the kind of bluntness he now brings to discussing his marriage. Fox News reported on his audition for the role of Louie De Palma on "Taxi," where he walked in, threw the script on the table, and asked the writers, "Who wrote this s***?", a calculated gamble to embody the abrasive character before the reading even began.
The bet paid off. The role earned DeVito a Golden Globe in 1980 and an Emmy in 1981, with four total Emmy nominations. It launched a film career that eventually led to "Matilda," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," and his current long-running role on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."
And the family DeVito built with Perlman along the way keeps growing. Both of their daughters, Lucy, 41, and Grace, 39, recently had babies. Their son Jacob is 37. DeVito described the grandchildren with the kind of unguarded joy that rarely makes it into celebrity interviews.
"In two years, my daughters have had a baby each and since these babies have been born you've got to tamper me down in the joy department, I'm just like busting."
In an era when celebrity breakups generate months of tabloid litigation, dueling Instagram statements, and PR-managed custody narratives, DeVito and Perlman's arrangement is striking for its lack of spectacle. They separated. They stayed married. They kept showing up for dinner. Neither one has offered a public justification beyond the obvious: it works for them and it works for their kids.
That kind of quiet, practical commitment to family, even when the romance has run its course, is the sort of thing that used to be more common and less remarkable. DeVito and Perlman just kept doing it while the culture moved on to something louder.
