Ben Stiller, and Christine Taylor, end marriage after 18 years together, less than a year after he revealed secret battle with prostate cancer

Actors Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor have called it quits after 17 years of marriage.

The shock split was reported on Friday, with the pair announcing the news in a joint statement.

'With tremendous love and respect for each other, and the 18 years we spent together as a couple, we have made the decision to separate,' Stiller and Taylor told ET.

'Our priority will continue to be raising our children as devoted parents and the closest of friends. We kindly ask that the media respect our privacy at this time.'

Ben, 51 and Christine, 45, first met on the set of Fox TV pilot Heat Vision and Jack in 1999. 

They married in 2000 at an oceanfront ceremony in Kauai, Hawaii and share two children, daughter Ella Olivia, 15 and son Quinlin Dempsey, 12.

'When I met her, I pretty much thought, "That's the person,"' Ben told ET in a 2007 interview. 'It was like, "Wow, this is a great person. I love her."'

Over the years the couple starred in several comedies together, including Zoolander, Zoolander 2, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Tropic Thunder and Arrested Development.

In October last year, Ben revealed he had privately endured a secret health battle after being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2014.

The Zoolander actor admitted he was taken aback when doctors detected the life-threatening disease because it came 'out of the blue'.

Speaking on SiriusXM's The Howard Stern Show in October, he said: 'It came out of the blue for me. I had no idea.

'At first, I didn't know what was going to happen. I was scared. It just stopped everything in your life because you can't plan for a movie because you don't know what's going to happen.

'As I learned more about my disease (one of the key learnings is not to Google 'people who died of prostate cancer' immediately after being diagnosed with prostate cancer), I was able to wrap my head around the fact that I was incredibly fortunate,' he wrote in a blog post.

Fortunate because my cancer was detected early enough to treat. And also because my internist gave me a test he didn't have to.'

In February 2016 the couple opened up about how working together affected their marriage while promoting Zoolander 2, which Christine also stars in.

'It's the best. I mean, I think that, you know, the reality is there's such an unspoken connection,' Christine explained.

'I feel like for us, when we first met, it was on set... He's amazing.'