Deborra-Lee Furness has issued an emotional public statement saying her “heart and compassion goes out to everyone who has traversed the traumatic journey of betrayal” just days after filing for divorce from Hugh Jackman.

The celebrity pair announced their separation in September 2023 after a relationship spanning 27 years. It is now being widely reported that Furness officially filed for divorce in a New York court on May 23.

In a statement released to media on Wednesday, Furness said it was a “profound wound that cuts deep” but she believed in “a higher power and that God/the universe … is always working FOR us”.

“This belief has helped me navigate the breakdown of an almost three-decade marriage,” she said.

Furness went on to say she had “gained much knowledge and wisdom through this experience”.

“Even when we are presented with apparent adversity, it is leading us to our greatest good, our true purpose,” her statement read.

“It is so easy to get lost in looking for love and validation outside ourselves, but that’s not where it lives – it lives within. Sometimes the universe has to create arduous circumstances for us to walk through in order to find our way home, back to our true essence and the sovereignty of self love.

“It can hurt, but in the long run, returning to yourself and living within your own integrity, values and boundaries is liberation and freedom.”

The couple met in 1995 while working on the ABC TV prison drama Correlli, in which Jackman played a prisoner and Furness – a much bigger star at the time – played a prison psychologist.