Rachel Zoe has recently opened up about the personal challenges that led her to end her marriage with Rodger Berman after a long-standing relationship spanning 33 years, including 26 years of marriage.

The couple publicly disclosed their separation last September, with Rachel filing for divorce in July. According to court documents accessed by the Daily Mail, the couple’s official separation date was recorded as June 27, 2024.

The former partners share two sons, 14-year-old Skyler and 11-year-old Kaius. When Zoe first announced their breakup last year, she emphasized that their children’s well-being remained their primary concern, stating: “Our number one priority has been and will always be our children.”

Zoe recently elaborated on her decision, highlighting that her choice to leave Berman was motivated by her children’s best interests. She explained, “Having two parents that love them is more important than having two parents together that maybe shouldn’t be together anymore.”

At 54, Zoe reflected that she “100%” should have made this decision sooner and revealed that she is actively dating again, viewing this new chapter as “incredibly fun.”

She revealed: ‘To be honest, that wasn’t hard for me to get into. It really wasn’t. I think this era for me is just freedom,’ via People magazine.

Rachel Zoe has exposed the relationship issues that prompted her to dump her husband Rodger Berman after 26 years of marriage and 33 together

They announced their split last September and she filed for divorce this July, giving the date of separation as June 27, 2024 in documents obtained by the Daily Mail; pictured 2023 

She expressed that anyone entering her life now must bring positivity, stating, “Anyone who comes into my life or our lives is only going to be someone that adds value in terms of making me laugh, making me smile, and really just making sense. It’ll have to feel organic and natural to who I am now.”

She noted  that by the time she and Berman split she ‘was done. I was really done. I don’t suffer from guilt of not having given it everything I could have.’

Nor does she ‘suffer from feeling like it was a failed marriage,’ she said. ‘Having been married for 26 years, I would say that three-quarters of that was amazing.’ 

While they were a couple, the pair frequently worked together and Berman was prominently featured on his wife’s Bravo reality show The Rachel Zoe Project. 

In addition to appearing with her on TV, Berman, a former investment banker, is a co-founder and fellow CEO of his estranged wife’s company Rachel Zoe, Inc. 

Now Zoe has shared that by the closing phase of her marriage, she had begun to ‘question decisions’ and come to the conclusion she and Berman were no longer aligned with regard to ‘what certain outcomes should be.’

She felt as a result that ‘this may not be the most advantageous situation for our children. For me for the last 14 years, literally every breath I take is for my kids.’

The pioneering celebrity stylist maintained that with ‘every decision I make, every lens that I look through is through a lens of my children, of what are they going to think? What are they going to say? How will this affect them? I have never felt that people should live together and stay together unhappy.’

The former couple share two sons, Skyler, 14, and Kaius, 11, with whom they are pictured in Beverly Hills in March 2024, three months before their listed date of separation 

The exes got together as college sweethearts in the early 1990s, when they were both students at George Washington University 

Zoe reflected: ‘I think if you ask any woman who has left a situation, they would probably say that they probably should have done it sooner. But it is what it is.’

This January, four months after Zoe revealed they had gone their separate ways, Berman was glimpsed in Los Angeles with an arm wrapped around a mystery blonde who was later revealed to be another stylist called Bree Jacoby.

When asked about the possibility that Jacoby’s relationship with Berman had overlapped with her own, Zoe answered with circumspection: ‘I don’t know that I can answer that really. Listen, the timeline’s the timeline.’

She iterated that ‘everything I answer is through a lens of what my children will see and hear. It is what it is. Whether or not they’re together now, I don’t really know. Life is wild, and I can say it takes a whole lot to really shock me.’ 

Zoe’s own rapport with Berman ‘depends on the day’ as she requires ‘time’ and ‘space’ and hopes to ‘protect my peace and happiness. I can say that it’s been certainly the most freeing, transformative time in my life.’

She acknowledged there are ‘brutal days. Don’t get me wrong. There’s hard days. But those days are usually because I’m very overwhelmed. I mom so hard, and I work so hard, and there’s always been a lack of self-care and me time.’

In the wake of her split, Zoe joined The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and will be a main cast member on season 15, which premieres next Thursday.

An insider alleged earlier this year that Zoe’s decision to join The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills was partly motivated by the end of her marriage.

Zoe, 54, added that she ‘100%’ should have ‘left sooner’ – and divulged that she is ‘absolutely dating’ again, describing her new stage of life as ‘incredibly fun’; pictured this month 

‘The money has been tighter for them for a while. It’s complicated because essentially, their entire lives are intertwined,’ the source claimed to The US Sun.

‘He runs all her businesses so there is no separation of work and home life. And there is no separation of his work and hers,’ the insider added. 

‘They built this together, which is a big reason she joined RHOBH. She wanted to venture out and do something that didn’t involve him. This will be her first big job post-divorce that does not involve him, it will be hers.’

Zoe meanwhile has now shared that she will be discussing her divorce in greater detail on the show in order ‘to help as many women as possible.’

She estimated that ‘at least 30% of the women in my life are going through a separation or a divorce’ and said she is often asked: ‘Why am I so okay coming out of a relationship that really transcended my entire adult life?’

Her answer is that she has remained ‘independent – financially, professionally and socially. I think that there isn’t enough emphasis put on the importance of that.’

The exes got together as college sweethearts in the early 1990s, when they were both students at George Washington University.

‘She was 19, and I was 22. She was a restaurant hostess, and I was working as a waiter in Washington, D.C., where we both attended college,’ Rodger recalled in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar in 2011.

Zoe has joined The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and will be a main cast member on season 15, which premieres next Thursday; pictured at BravoCon this month

‘I vividly remember the first time I saw her — wearing a tight black mini dress, high-heeled pumps, stick-straight hair, and big red lips covered in M.A.C. Chili lipstick.’

They tied the knot on Valentine’s Day 1998 and he was by her side as she rose to become one of the most sought-after stylists in Hollywood.

By the 2000s, she boasted a client list of top-flight names like Britney Spears, Keira Knightley, Lindsay Lohan, Kate Beckinsale, Jennifer Garner, Anne Hathaway, Demi Moore, the Backstreet Boys, Cameron Diaz, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.

In 2006, as her star rose, she raved about her husband: ‘I’m telling you, I am nothing without him. He keeps me sane,’ per the Guardian.

Her notoriety grew to the point that she landed a hit realty show about her career, The Rachel Zoe Project, which aired on Bravo from 2008 to 2013. 

Over a decade ago, Zoe was asked to name the most difficult aspect of working with her husband and replied that Berman ‘talks over everybody and talks too much so then you have to figure out the polite and political way in a meeting to tell him to stop talking and let other people speak,’ via Fortune.