Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis announce they have split after 14 years

It's official: Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis have split after 14 years together. The couple "have amicably separated," Depp's publicist said in a statement released to Entertainment Tonight Tuesday. "Please respect their privacy and, more importantly, the privacy of their children." As has been reported, the two drifted into living separate lives after moving to Los Angeles from France. They haven't appeared together on a red carpet in a year and, an insider told PEOPLE about their crumbling relationship, "It's so sad." The couple have two children together: Lily-Rose, 13, and Jack, 9. Depp, 49, and Paradis, 39, first got together in 1998. Their romance began that June, when Depp saw the French actress sitting with a group of friends at the bar of the Costes Hotel in Paris, where he was having dinner with colleagues. Depp had a friend invite her over, and they talked for two hours. A longtime resident of Plan-de-la-Tour in southern France, Depp recently told French magazine VSD that living in France with Paradis and their kids "has given me everything. A marvelous family and also an equilibrium which I missed enormously." And in 2010, Paradis gushed to the U.K. edition of Marie Claire about her man. "I could make an endless list of all the things I admire about him," she said. "We understand that, if we want our relationship to continue, we must give each other space, allow each other to go off on our own, and trust each other. Not everyone is lucky enough to be given space and trust." In another interview, Paradis explained why the pair never felt the need to marry. "I love the romance of 'let's get married,' but then, when you have it so perfect ... I mean, I'm more married than anybody can be – we have two kids. Maybe one day, but it's something I can really do without," Paradis once told Elle.They were first rumoured to have split in January this year but Paradis denied the speculation and hit out against the claims in TV chat show Le Grand Journal as she promoted her new movie Cafe de Flore.She said: ''People say we are buying houses in the middle of nowhere, or that we have fifty two houses in France.'And that is along with saying we split up every winter and get married every summer, and that I'm on my twelfth pregnancy.'All that is not too serious, but this latest one is a rumour which could cause a lot of harm to my family and my children.'He also denied it to the Sun recently and insisted that the rumours were not true and added: 'No matter what I say about this, people believe the opposite. I can't say enough about it not being over.'