SEAN PENN and Charlize Theron have broken up, Us Weekly reported.

    The actors had been dating for a year and a half and secretly got engaged in December 2014 during a trip to Paris. But during their more recent trip to France for the Cannes Film Festival the relationship took a turn in the other direction, a source told the magazine, and Theron decided it was over.

    Penn, 54, and Theron, 39, are said to have known each other for many years before their romance began.

    Recently, Theron had called Penn the “love of my life” in the June issue of Elle U.K. “Putting aside that he’s my partner, he’s the love of my life; for the first time, I felt that my work was really bleeding into my life and that made it hard. But it makes you realize that no matter how complicated it gets, the priority is the relationship.”

    Penn, who had famously been married to Madonna and Robin Wright, had provided some thoughtful remarks to Esquire U.K. in February regarding his future with Theron.

    “You say I’ve been married twice before, but I’ve been married under circumstances where I was less informed than I am today,” Penn speculated of his future with Theron. “So I wouldn’t even consider it a third marriage, I’d consider it a first marriage on its own terms if I got married again.”

    He added that he was “surprised to be in love” with Theron for many reasons. “I’m self-proclaimed bad at mathematics but I can do two plus two,” he explained. “To run into somebody now who you care about is a much more passionate, deeper, truer and a much happier feeling.”(SD-Agencies)