Beauty mogul Caroline Hirons ends 32-year marriage

Beauty industry powerhouse Caroline Hirons has announced that she and her husband Jim have separated after 32 years of marriage, revealing the deeply personal update directly to her followers.

The 55-year-old skincare expert and This Morning regular shared the news on Instagram on Wednesday, confirming that she and the musician are no longer together. She made it clear that while they are separated, divorce is not on the horizon, and reconciliation is not an option.

She wrote: "Yes we are separated. No, we are not getting divorced in the foreseeable. No, that does not mean we will get back together. We will not."

Caroline went on to address speculation around her personal life, stressing that she has no intention of changing her name or re-entering the dating world any time soon.

She said: "No I am not 'looking for a man'. No I do not 'hate him'. No I will not be going into detail. No I am not changing my name.

"I've been a Hirons longer than I was a Holmes. It's the name of my family, my kids and my grandkids. My name is Caroline Hirons. The end. Please leave my kids alone."

Speaking candidly during a two-hour Instagram Live, Caroline expanded on the situation, explaining that the separation is not recent news within her personal life, but something she has chosen not to publicly dwell on.

She told viewers: "Guys, Jim and I are not together. It's not new news, we haven't really gone to town about it.

"You're never going to see a big f***ing one of those woers us post on Insta, with pictures of us through the years, and we had such a wonderful life together, and we're moving forward together. It's a typical divorce; we communicate when we need to. He's the father of my children, and therefore, I'm not going to talk badly about him.

"Obviously, if we still loved each other in that way, we'd still be together. So I wish him the best but I can't tell you what he's like because I don't see the man."

Despite the split, Caroline revealed that communication between them continues when necessary, even laughing as she disclosed that Jim had recently been in touch.

She explained: "We have to talk about things, we have a whole family together."

Before adding: "We have to talk, it's not like blocking him."

She also reassured followers that she does not mind being asked about the separation and hinted that at least one family member knows the full story behind the breakup.

Caroline said a relative "knows where the bodies are buried".

Reflecting on her early relationship with Jim, she shared an anecdote about introducing him to her Liverpool family for the first time, recalling how protective her relatives were.

She said: "He met Scousers for the first time, and my uncle Derek, who is beloved and loves me and loved my mum, I think he said something along the lines of 'Don't hurt her', and Jim, of course, was a bit 'How dare he?'"

She added that another uncle escalated the joke even further, saying: "They'll be picking pieces of your body out of the Mersey..."

Caroline noted that Jim was the only man she ever brought home to meet her family.

Two years ago, the skincare guru marked three decades of marriage with a light-hearted social media post, joking: "30 years hitched and counting… do we get a prize?"

The announcement comes amid Caroline’s continued openness about the darker side of public life. She has previously spoken out about being stalked, harassed and abused online by users of the gossip forum Tattle Life.

Appearing on Lorraine last year, Caroline addressed the impact the site had on her and her family after host Lorraine Kelly said: "Caroline, you were one of the people who were horribly affected by this..."

Caroline responded: "Not just me. They came after my family.

"The thing with Tattle is, I've had an online persona for 16 years, it started on Twitter like everyone else, then I moved to Instagram.

"We're used to being trolled, the lowest common demonstrator is that you talk about someone's appearance...

"I've had people telling me they're not attracted to me for 16 years, it's water off a duck's back.

"That's not Tattle. Tattle is stalking, death threats, I really need to hammer that message home."

She went on to accuse the site of systematic abuse, saying: "Everything that site says in terms of we monitor everything, we didn't know this was happening, it's all lies. It's not an untruth, not a mistake. It's lies.

"They have systematically harassed, abused, stalked families, they posted mortgage docs, they've posted of my grandchildren in my home. You have no idea."

She added: "Most people are really good people, when you hear of this, 'surely a little bit of not everyone is going to like you', 'people are going to comment on your appearance, that's what everyone does'.

"That is not what this is. I cannot make it clear enough."

Caroline’s rise to fame began in 2014, when the mother of four, then a former Saturday girl at Harvey Nichols, started filming skincare videos from her bedroom. One of her earliest clips went viral after real life interrupted filming.

As she recalled: "I turned and shouted out of the window, 'Can you shut up?' like any mother would, and it all got recorded."

She later asked Jim whether she should keep the moment in the video. She said: "He said, 'I'm not sure, love'.

"I thought my blog readers might relate to me screaming at my kids, because every mother does it."

She left the clip in, and the response was immediate. "The comments were all along the lines of, 'Oh my God, finally someone who's normal on YouTube!'"

Since then, Caroline has built a major beauty empire, authoring books including Skincare: The New Edit and Teen Skincare, founding Skin Rocks, and co-founding Beauty Backed, while now navigating a new chapter of her personal life on her own terms.