London, May 1, 2025 — In a twist that echoes the bluesy heartbreak of his own songs, legendary singer-songwriter Van Morrison has officially filed for divorce from his long-time partner, former model and television personality Michelle Rocca. The news comes after years of an on-again, off-again marriage that has played out largely away from the limelight but now finds itself in the spotlight—this time, not for love, but for legal proceedings.

The Golden Couple of Irish Celebrity Culture

Van Morrison, now 79, is known around the world for his poetic lyricism and soulful sound, having penned iconic hits like “Brown Eyed Girl,” “Moondance,” and “Into the Mystic.” His legacy in the music industry is undeniable, with a career spanning over six decades and multiple accolades, including six Grammy Awards and an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Michelle Rocca, 63, rose to prominence as a beauty queen and TV presenter in Ireland. With striking looks and a poised demeanor, she captured public attention when she won Miss Ireland and later became a co-host of the Eurovision Song Contest. But her fame took a different trajectory when she entered into a romantic relationship with the notoriously private Van Morrison in the early 1990s.

The couple married in 2006 after years of courting and shared more than two decades of life together, raising two children in the relative seclusion of their homes in Dublin and Belfast. Despite Van Morrison’s public persona as a solitary musical genius, he and Michelle had, for a long time, been seen as a symbol of quiet resilience and mature love.

Trouble Behind Closed Doors

Yet, as with many relationships under the weight of fame and personal complexity, the marriage was not without its turbulence. While the pair largely kept their personal affairs private, insiders and long-time associates hint at long-standing tensions between the couple. According to sources close to the family, the union had been under strain for years, with emotional distance, career-related pressures, and philosophical differences becoming increasingly hard to bridge.

“Van is an intense personality—he lives and breathes music. That passion doesn’t always translate well into domestic life,” said a former bandmate who requested anonymity. “Michelle was incredibly patient, but after so many years, it seems like they both grew apart.”

The tipping point reportedly came in early 2025, when Morrison initiated legal proceedings in a London family court, citing “irreconcilable differences.” According to leaked court documents, Morrison is seeking dissolution of the marriage and a formal division of assets, including shared properties, financial investments, and intellectual property interests that Michelle may have a stake in.

A Second Divorce Between Them?

What makes this divorce all the more surprising is that it isn’t the first time Morrison and Rocca have gone down this path. In 2013, tabloids reported that the couple had quietly filed for separation, but reconciled shortly after. The details of that split remain confidential, but several sources suggest that there was a formal divorce that was later annulled or reversed through legal action.

“It’s been a rollercoaster,” says Dublin-based family law attorney Ciaran Hughes, who is not involved in the current proceedings but has followed the case closely. “It’s rare to see this kind of back-and-forth in high-profile marriages, especially when there are substantial estates involved.”

The Legal Stakes: A Battle of Estates and Royalties

The looming divorce raises serious legal and financial questions. Van Morrison’s estate is worth an estimated $90 million, including publishing rights, recording royalties, real estate, and art collections. Michelle Rocca, who stepped away from public life to focus on her family and academic pursuits in philosophy and psychology, has been a consistent presence in the background of Morrison’s business decisions for decades.

Under UK and Irish law, Rocca may be entitled to a substantial portion of the marital assets, particularly if she can prove long-term contributions to Morrison’s career or management decisions. Legal experts speculate that the divorce could become one of the more expensive celebrity separations in recent Irish history.

“It won’t just be about property or money,” said family lawyer Fiona Carney. “It could also affect legacy rights—Michelle may have had a role in managing the brand that is Van Morrison. If she has documentation or proof of managerial influence, that will count for something.”

The Children and the Emotional Toll

While much of the media focus will likely be on the financial implications, the emotional fallout cannot be ignored. The couple shares two children, who are now in their late teens and early twenties. Though they have remained largely out of the spotlight, it is believed they have had to navigate the same emotional rollercoaster as their parents.

“The children have always been Michelle’s focus,” says a friend of the family. “She sacrificed a lot—her career, her privacy, even her ambitions—to ensure they had a grounded upbringing. This divorce will be especially hard on her.”

Van Morrison, known for his stoic and often reclusive demeanor, has made no public statements about the filing. Michelle Rocca, similarly private in recent years, has declined to comment through her legal team. Still, those close to the pair describe a profound sadness on both sides.

A Legacy in the Balance?

Beyond the legal and personal drama, some fans wonder what this means for Morrison’s musical legacy. The artist has always channeled his life experiences into his work, and it’s possible that this heartbreak could inspire a new creative chapter. Already, speculation is growing that his next album—rumored to be in production—may reflect the emotional depth of his current struggles.

“This man has written some of the most moving love songs in history,” said music critic Seamus Quinn. “But his breakups have also given us his darkest, most soul-searching material. Don’t be surprised if this ends up producing some unforgettable music.”

Final Notes: When Love Turns Litigious

Ultimately, the end of a long marriage is always a tragedy—celebrity status notwithstanding. Van Morrison and Michelle Rocca’s story was one of passion, perseverance, and complexity. It now enters a final chapter colored by courtrooms and legal documents instead of romance and poetry.

Whether the divorce proceeds amicably or devolves into a high-profile courtroom drama, it marks the end of an era for two of Ireland’s most recognizable names. Fans, observers, and legal analysts alike will be watching closely—not only for the legal outcomes but for what this means to the enduring mystique of Van Morrison.

For now, the man who once sang about “someone like you” must reckon with the painful reality that even the deepest loves sometimes end—not in music, but in litigation.

Would you like a shortened version or quotes to use for a social media post or press release?

T

here is no musician alive quite like Van Morrison. The 79-year-old is almost a folkloric figure at this point, a curmudgeon of such bizarre and specific idiosyncrasies that nearly everyone in music seems to have their own Van Morrison story to share.

His mercurial, often dysfunctional behaviour has birthed a million whispered anecdotes – some funny, some baffling, some surely apocryphal. (I remember a radio call-in segment years ago in which someone claimed that Morrison had been sat reading the paper at the venue where they were celebrating their nuptials; refusing to budge, the singer is supposedly pictured scowling in the background of their wedding photos.) And yet, Morrison’s music, a joyous, expansive offshoot of Rhythm and Blues, is nothing short of transcendent. One minute he’d be terrorising his bandmates with an impossible perfectionism, the next he’d be singing about the beauty of “days like this” with a voice that seemed to channel some ancient magic.

At least, this used to be the case. The Irish singer’s latest album New Arrangements and Duets – his 46th studio LP, out this week – is a reminder of what late-era Van Morrison means. A musically proficient but plodding elevator-ready mix of duets, throwback covers and re-recorded originals, it falls desperately short of his earlier brilliance. It’s by no yardstick the worst record in Morrison’s back catalogue: that dishonour may well go to Morrison’s dismal post-pandemic albums, which featured original protest songs such as “They Own the Media” and “Fodder for the Masses”. Or perhaps to the 30-odd nonsense songs he recorded to petulantly fulfil an unwanted record contract, available now on Spotify under the title The Infamous Contractual Obligation Recordings Of ‘67. (Whatever you’re imagining – it’s somehow weirder than that.) In any case, New Arrangements and Duets is no fresh nadir for Morrison. But it is a continuation of a decades-long decline: the lapsing of a career from something vital and captivating to something staid and ultimately dispensable.

Whether he would admit it or not, Morrison’s latest album reads like an attempt to shrug off the stigma of the last few years. During Covid, his public image took a battering; his dogmatic anti-establishment and anti-lockdown outbursts (which did not, he insisted, equate to anti-vaxxerism) seeped into his songwriting and his stage performances. He was never “cancelled” in any meaningful way – Morrison continued to perform in big venues, with typically sky-high ticket prices – but the backlash risked tipping his reputation from legendarily grumpy to outright toxic.

By contrast, New Arrangements and Duets is tame and apolitical, and – significantly – was recorded before the pandemic. Old big band covers are never going to bring Morrison back into music’s mainstream, but among his loyalists, this album might well deflate some of the lingering discomfort over his radical pandemic re-brand.

It’s a shame that this is the case at all. That the new measure of a Van Morrison record is whether it is politically problematic, or simply dull. Any real hope of a comeback album, a bona fide late-era classic, dissipated years ago. It’s not a matter of being too old: Bruce Springsteen, a mere four years Morrison’s junior, still releases new records to rave reviews. On tour, too, he puts on forceful, triumphant shows. Meanwhile, a new Morrison record is greeted with a halfhearted shrug, and his live performances tend to be as erratic as they are unenthusiastic. His reputation as a crank – a difficult and quarrelsome bandleader/interviewee/celebrity – is starting to outstrip his reputation as a musical genius.

This is sad – because “genius” really is no overstatement. What’s galling about the framing of Morrison as a rock’n’roll has-been is that it fails to acknowledge the full extent of his achievements. Across the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties and (to a lesser extent) the Nineties, Morrison recorded more genuinely great albums than most septuagenarian rockstars have albums in total. The canonisation of “Brown Eyed Girl” has often led to Morrison’s smearing in the popular imagination as someone who is overplayed at weddings, a little cloying, a little cheesy – but dig into his catalogue, and the depths and intricacies of his musicianship are incontrovertible, across a huge range of genres and sounds.

Even if we ignore his widely celebrated early work (the epochal Astral Weeks and the diamond-tight Moondance among it), there’s no shortage of beguiling detours. There’s his languid, spiritual 1980 album Common One, built around the coruscating, 15-minute-long “Summertime in England”; the trad music of his 1988 Chieftains collaboration Irish Heartbeat; and the glorious It’s Too Late to Stop Now, one of the finest live albums ever committed to record.

There may yet be a positive addendum to the waning arc of Morrison’s career. Among the myriad anecdotes of feuds and interpersonal quirks that trail Van the Man’s reputation, there’s another type of rumour – reports of music that he recorded under more felicitous circumstances. The sessions he’s said to have recorded with BB King’s backing band. The folk album supposedly sat in a vault somewhere.

In the world of commercialised music, few vaults stay sealed forever. And it would be nice to think that Morrison has one last great album left in him. Despite his efforts to obliterate all goodwill, Morrison, one of the 20th century’s great musicians, still deserves a victory lap. He just needs to start running.