Actor-director Mel Gibson and his wife Rosalind Ross have confirmed their separation after nine years, according to reports.

The controversial star, 69, told People that although the couple had decided to go their separate ways, they would continue to co-parent their eight-year-old son Lars.

“Although it’s sad to end this chapter in our lives, we are blessed with a beautiful son and will continue to be the best parents possible,” Gibson and Ross said in a joint statement on Tuesday (US time).

In January 2025, the couple lost their home in the Los Angeles fires while Gibson was working out of town.

“The good news is that those in my family and those I love are all well, and we’re all happy and healthy and out of harm’s way, that’s all I can care about, really,” Gibson said on NewsNation at the time.

Gibson and Ross, 35, a screenwriter, met through mutual friends in 2014 and welcomed their son in 2017.

They reportedly quietly split about a year ago, writes People.

Gibson has eight other children — seven with his ex-wife Robyn Moore and a teen daughter with former partner Oksana Grigorieva, a songwriter and pianist.

Mel Gibson and an earlier partner Oksana Grigorieva split in 2010. Photo: AAP

Gibson is working on The Resurrection of the Christ, the follow-up project to his 2004 biblical drama The Passion of the Christ.

The Braveheart actor has described The Resurrection Of The Christ as an “acid trip” and admitted he had “never read anything like” the script he has worked on with Randall Wallace.

“My brother and I and Randall all sort of congregated on this. So there’s some good heads put together, but there’s some crazy stuff,” Gibson told podcaster Joe Rogan.

“I think in order to really tell the story properly you have to really start with the fall of the angels, which means you’re in another place, you’re in another realm. You need to go to hell.”

The sequel – in which Jim Caviezel will reprise his role as Jesus Christ – has been in development since 2016. Gibson previously said it would not have “a linear narrative”.

“You have to juxtapose the central event that I’m trying to tell with everything else around it in the future, in the past, and in other realms, and that’s kind of getting a little sci-fi out there,” he told the National Catholic Register in 2022.

-with AAP