

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.”
Jack White’s wife Olivia Jean files for divorce citing ‘inappropriate marital conduct’
The couple were married on stage during a Detroit concert in 2022.
Key Points
- Jack White’s wife of four years, Olivia Jean, has filed for divorce, citing “inappropriate marital conduct.”
- Jean, a singer-songwriter, claims in legal documents that she is financially dependent on White and is requesting that he put her on his life insurance policy.
- The couple got married on stage during a White Stripes concert in 2022.
Jack White’s third marriage is over, after his wife of four years filed for divorce on the grounds of “inappropriate marital conduct.”
According to court documents obtained by Entertainment Weekly, singer-songwriter Olivia Jean filed for divorce on June 3, which she noted as the date of separation.
“Wife would show that Husband is guilty of inappropriate marital conduct, which makes further cohabitation unsafe and improper,” the filing claims.
The complaint states the “date and place of marriage” as December 2022 in Nashville, despite the couple’s surprise wedding eight months earlier during an April 8 concert in their shared hometown of Detroit. At the time, a rep for the White Stripes rocker told PEOPLE “the marriage is legal and valid.”
Jean also said in her filing that she is dependent on White’s income. She has requested financial support, and that he maintain her on his life insurance policy as a beneficiary.
Additionally, Jean’s filing asks that her estranged husband cover her legal fees as well as any other expenses incurred “in the preparation and prosecution of her Complaint for Divorce.”
Representatives for White and Jean did not immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly’s request for comment.
White popped the question to Jean onstage during a duet of the White Stripes’ song “Hotel Yorba” at Detroit’s Masonic Temple. “It’s been such a great day, mind if we get married right now?” White asked the audience, which included his mother and Jean’s father.
Ben Swank, cofounder of White’s Third Man Records, then stepped onstage to officiate an impromptu ceremony. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life,” said Swank, referencing the opening lyric of Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy.”
Three months later, Jean opened up about the spontaneous moment, describing it as “the best experience of my life” in the New York Times. “You could plan a wedding for five years and it wouldn’t compare to that.”
White was previously married to White Stripes drummer Meg White for four years, until 2000, and to supermodel Karen Elson, with whom he has two children, from 2005 to 2013.
He met Jean, frontwoman of the Black Belles, in 2009 following a concert for his band The Dead Weather. The then-19-year-old musician distributed a bunch of her demo CDs around the venue as well as White’s tour bus. Unbeknownst to her, he had been watching.
Weeks later, White called and invited Jean to record with him in Nashville. “I put the phone down and then I just laid on the ground for a few minutes,” she recalled to the NYT. “Like, this is not real. This can’t be real. This doesn’t happen to people.”
When the White Stripes were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in November 2022, the frontman credited his parents and siblings “for letting me make all that noise in the house all the time growing up. And I thank my children, Scarlett, Henry Lee, and my wife, Olivia Jean, for also pushing me to make all that noise in the house nowadays.”












:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(753x271:755x273):format(webp)/cole-the-deaf-dog-112125-1a-ad248101bd174108a795d88d6afd93d8.jpg?resize=750,500&ssl=1)

























