“Million Dollar Baby” star Hilary Swank’s marriage is down for the count.
The two-time Oscar winner and her limelight-challenged hubby, Chad Lowe, yesterday announced that they were splitting after eight years of marriage – amid rumors that he was having an increasingly hard time grappling with her fame and fortune.
“Hilary and Chad have decided to separate, but they are hopeful they will be able to get through this tough time,” Swank’s manager and close friend, Troy Nankin, said in a statement.
A source said the New York duo, whose favorite local pastimes had recently included sipping Dom Perignon bubbly at Montrachet and enjoying frothy cappuccinos at Moby’s Teany to Go, had been having serious problems for awhile.
They finally secretly agreed to a trial separation several months ago, according to TV’s “Extra.”
After spending New Year’s apart, the pair sadly decided to go public and make their split official, the source added.
Swank shares a tony townhouse with her hubby in Greenwich Village, as well as a posh Malibu pad.
She had been frequently spotted working out at a local Village gyms to keep up her buff bod and enjoying sidewalk shopping along trendy Prince Street in SoHo in a hunt for bargains.
Her husband would join her at night for dinner: Recently, the pair huddled with screenwriter Richard LaGravenese at Montrachet.
But the busy actress has lately been stuck in Los Angeles filming “Freedom Writers,” a flick about an inspirational school teacher in a tough neighborhood, while her husband has been traveling between L.A. and Manhattan working on his latest movie, “Beautiful Ohio,” a source told The Post.
Asked whether either of the couple was involved with someone else, the source insisted, “There’s not a third person.”
The Midwestern sweethearts had what many had deemed a startlingly solid relationship, given the demanding pressures of Hollywood that only intensified after Swank’s first surprise Oscar coup in 1999.
Then, Swank, 31, won the coveted Best Actress nod for her riveting, painful role as Brandon Teena in “Boys Don’t Cry,” in which she played a girl pretending to be a boy who is eventually brutally raped and murdered by male pals.
The Nebraska native and bashful girl-next-door-type initially seemed to take her newfound fame in stride, remaining loyal to the career-floundering Lowe, 37, whose brother is hunky ex-“West Wing” co-star, Rob Lowe.
The first signs of possible stress in the marriage were said to have surfaced in 2000 on the set of “The Affair of the Necklace” in romantic Rome, as rumors emerged of an alleged affair between Swank and her smoldering co-star, Adrien Brody.
The pair, who played husband and wife in the romantic drama, were caught enjoying a romantic dinner one night. Afterward, the sensual Brody was spotted buying Swank a red rose, and the pair shared an ice-cream cone as they took a cozy stroll back to their hotel.
Swank infamously forgot to thank her hubby on stage while accepting her “Boys Don’t Cry” Oscar.
But Swank and Lowe stayed together, and during the actress’ acceptance speech for her second Academy Award as the gusty pugilist in “Million Dollar Baby” last year, she glowingly crowed to her beaming hubby in the crowd:
“Chad, you’re my everything.”
She and her husband were then feted as the real thing after they went out for food with pals at a down-home, fast-food joint after the Oscar parties.
Still, while he won an Emmy as AIDS-stricken Jesse McKenna in TV’s “Life Goes On,” he never achieved the level of Swank’s success.