Brad Garrett Secretly Divorced (People)

LOS ANGELES (AUGUST 15, 2006) ? According to People, “Everybody Loves Raymond” Emmy winner Brad Garrett told USA Today that he and his wife of seven years, Jill Diven, quietly divorced a year ago.

Garrett, 46, said that he and Diven had kept their split a secret from his coworkers and even his parents for the past year, and that he and his ex – whom he considers “an extraordinary woman” and “the greatest mom in the world” – are on good terms, People reported.

They have two children, Max, 7, and Hope, 6.

“Our No. 1 focus is our kids and parenting,” Garrett told USA Today, according to People. “We will always be friends because we will never be single parents. We will always be two parents.”

Still, he said, “You can’t stay together for the kids, because kids know everything. Sure, it’s daunting to have Daddy move out, but when he’s back two days later, and he gives Mom a hug, and everyone goes to lunch – that’s what it’s about.”

Garrett, who stars in the new Fox sitcom “‘Til Death,” still keeps a room in the Woodland Hills, Calif., mansion he shared with Diven, and she has space in his 1940s Spanish-style home in Malibu, which she found for him while he was on Broadway earlier this year in a revival of The Odd Couple, People reported.

Diven was a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas when she and Garrett met, and he proposed to her on the Raymond set on Aug. 25, 1998, with his castmates, crew and the audience as witnesses, People reported at the time.

They married the following May 18 at the Beverly Hills Hotel, with son Max, then 8 months old, dressed in a tiny tux.

According to People, Diven told USA Today that she has “nothing but positive things to say about Brad. We both realized we’re best friends, and we’re always going to be best friends. People grow apart. We could do the ‘he said-she said’ thing, but that’s not us.”