The other side. Justin Hartley’s ex-wife and daughter defended him amid Chrishell Stause‘s divorce claims on Selling Sunset season 3. Hartley’s ex-wife, Lindsay Korman (whom he was married to from 2004 to 2012), took to her Instagram on Tuesday, August 11, to defend him after Stause claimed that the This Is Us star texted her about their divorce 45 minutes before news of their split broke.
“In a day when social media should be used for positivity…an inspiration towards movement in an honest and deserving way, I’d like to join, by highlighting my appreciation for my family,” Korman, who met Hartley on the set of the soap opera Passions, wrote in a statement on her Instagram. “Today, I appreciate my ex-husband Justin for not only being [an] exemplification of a solid man but for being my dear friend and devoted father to our daughter. Simply put; for being family. We derive our own opinion of people by experiencing life and time together, and we do our best to hold dear the ones that maintain consistent kindness, love and generosity.”
She continued, “No matter what conflicts Justin and I had in the past, I appreciate what we have today and I am thankful for the family we have built.”
Korman and Hartley’s 16-year-old daughter, Isabella Justice Hartley, also supported her father amid Stause’s divorce claims by reposting her mom’s statement on her Instagram Story. Hartley filed for divorce from Stause in November 2019 after two years of marriage. The breakup was filmed on season 3 of Selling Sunset, which premiered on Netflix on Friday, August 7. Korman’s statement also comes after Stause hinted that Hartley cheated on her with his now-girlfriend Sofia Pernas.
“It’s a lot at once because everyone in the whole world knows at the same time that I knew,” Stause said on the reality TV show. “Have you ever been knocked over by a wave and you don’t know what way to swim to get up?”
In a May interview with StyleCaster, Stause opened up about how she almost quit Selling Sunset to not film her divorce. “If I’m being perfectly honest, my knee-jerk reaction was I can’t do this,” she said at the time. “[Quitting the show] did cross my mind. This isn’t something that anybody would sign up for or do on purpose. I would’ve given anything if everything had happened after. It’s a lot easier to talk about a little blurb and move on and just talk about the show. However, that being said, it was out there anyways, so now it’s almost like ripping a Band-Aid off.”
She continued, “All of a sudden, I had not only the show following me, I had paparazzi on me. It was the most bizarre thing I’d ever lived through in my life. Even now, when I look back on it, it seemed like it was a dream. A nightmare, to be honest. I didn’t necessarily choose to talk about it. It was unavoidable. They filmed what was going on. I had to address it.”
Stause also told StyleCaster that Hartley had “reservations” about her starring on Selling Sunset. “I think everyone would probably have reservations signing up for something like this, which is fair,” she said at the time. “That was a normal conversation that you have with anybody in your life who cares about you. They were normal conversations of concern.”