Joshua Malina‘s wife, Melissa Merwin, has filed for divorce from the West Wing actor after nearly 28 years of marriage, citing “irreconcilable differences.”
According to court documents obtained by TMZ on Monday (August 5), Merwin, a costume designer who has worked on productions like Fallen, Ellen, and Point of No Return, has requested spousal support from Malina. An exact date of the separation was not specified.
Merwin did not request child support as the former couple share two adult children, daughter Isabel, 26, and son Avi, 22. The documents state that Merwin would like to dissolve the marriage “amicably” and “with minimal court intervention.”
Malina met Merwin in 1992 through Merwin’s sister, Jennifer Merwin, and his former brother-in-law, Timothy Busfield. They dated for several years before tying the knot in December 1996.
Despite being married for almost three decades, the pair kept their relationship out of the spotlight, except for rare social media posts from Malina. Back in July 2022, Malina took to Instagram to wish his soon-to-be ex-wife a happy birthday, calling her “the love of my life.”
“I’ve been married to this beauty for 24 years!” he captioned another photo in 2020.
Malina is best known for playing Will Bailey on the NBC drama The West Wing from Season 4 to Season 7. His other roles include Jeremy Goodwin on Sports Night, US Attorney General David Rosen on Scandal, and Caltech President Siebert on The Big Bang Theory.
In more recent years, Malina appeared in Shameless, the Netflix miniseries Inventing Anna and the NBC sitcom American Auto. Last year, he made his return to Broadway in Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt, marking his first stage performance since 1989.
According to IMDB, Malina’s next roles will be in the films Ethan Bloom and The Latin from Manhattan, both of which are currently in post-production.