Zach Gilford has filed for divorce from his wife and Criminal Minds costar, Kiele Sanchez, after 12 years of marriage.
Gilford, 43, filed to dissolve the pair’s marriage in court documents filed on Friday, April 18, and obtained by TMZ. He reportedly cited “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for the duo’s split but did not list a date of separation.
Neither the Friday Night Lights alum nor Sanchez, 47, has publicly addressed their split. Us Weekly reached out to reps for both actors for comment.
Gilford and Sanchez got married in 2012, later welcoming children Zeppelin, 7, and Revel, 4. According to the court docs obtained by TMZ, the Good Girls alum is seeking joint legal and physical custody.
Rich Polk/Getty Images Zach Gilford isn’t turning down an invite to a reunion at Dillon High School. Gilford, 42, who played quarterback-turned-art school student Matt Saracen on all five seasons of Friday Night Lights, exclusively told Us Weekly that he’s open to a reboot of the beloved football drama, with a few stipulations. “What made […]
In addition to Gilford and Sanchez’s real-life marriage, they also played a couple on Criminal Minds: Evolution.
“It’s actually harder,” Gilford exclusively told Us in August 2024 of starring opposite his then-wife. “It’s harder because I don’t want to hold a gun to my wife’s head. … It just happened to be that the nature of these scenes were pretty gross.”
He added, “Honestly, all those scenes are so f***ed up. I’ll only speak for myself. Kiele can obviously speak for herself, but it felt gross [bringing those darker moments to life together].”
Gilford further revealed to Us that he and Sanchez weren’t cast at the same time.
“I was on my way to work, and I said goodbye to Kiele. And she looked at her phone and said, ‘That’s weird. I just got an offer to play your wife on Criminal Minds,’” Gilford shared last year. “Then, Erica [Messer, the showrunner] told me, ‘We didn’t want to put pressure on you or Kiele. We just wanted to make it very professional.’”
Friday Night Lights focused on the ups and downs of high school football players in the fictional town of Dillion, Texas, from their classes to their dating lives. In real life, Zach Gilford, Minka Kelly and more cast members have managed to find love after appearing on the show, which originally aired from 2006 to […]
He continued: “I think they were like, ‘Well, if Zach’s doing this then the only way we’ll get an actress of Kiele’s caliber to play this part is because she’s married to him. And it’ll be like a homie hookup.’ Once they got Kiele, they definitely leaned into it and they’re like, ‘Well, we have this actress so let’s write to her.’”
Criminal Minds was not Gilford and Sanchez’s first onscreen collaboration. After meeting on the set of a TV pilot called The Matadors in 2010, they went on to share the screen on Kingdom and The Purge: Anarchy. Sanchez also cowrote an episode of The Fall of the House of Usher, of which Gilford starred.
“We’ve worked together several times and in very different situations,” Gilford recalled to Us. “But there’s a theme on set when you are coworkers but also a married couple. It’s kind of trying to walk that tightrope. There’s times where I want to [support her]. Like, if she’s having a discussion [with a director or a writer], I want to be like, ‘Yeah, Kiele is right!’ But that’s not my place. Kiele can talk for herself — she’s a very strong woman.”
