4 Facts About Phil Elverum, Michelle Williams's Ex-Husband

Michelle Williams totally threw us for a loop when she announced that she'd tied the knot with musician Phil Elverum in July of 2018, but less than a year later, the two are now separated. People announced their split in April, saying the couple "separated at the beginning of the year." "It was an amicable spilt and they remain friends," a source added. Neither Michelle nor Phil has commented on their breakup yet, but Michelle was recently seen without her wedding band. Here's everything you need to know about Phil.

  1. He was part of a band before becoming a solo artist. In 1996, Phil founded The Microphones, and he served as principal songwriter, frontman, and producer for the band until he decided to strike out on his own in 2003. Since then, Phil has recorded and performed under the name Mount Eerie, a name taken from the area in Anacortes, WA, called Mount Erie. The Microphones also had an album of the same name, which was released right before Phil made the switch. As he explained in a 2003 interview with Discoder, "Mount Eerie is a new project. The Microphones was completed, or at least at a good stopping point. I did it because I am ready for new things. I am new." Since then, he has released an insane nine studio albums on his own.
  2. He changed the spelling of his last name. Around the same time Phil decided to start recording under his new persona, Mount Eerie, he decided to make a slight change to his real-life name, which was originally Elvrum, adding an extra 'e' so it had the same spelling as the Norwegian town of the same name. When asked about the change, he explained to The Believer that the change happened while he was living in Norway. "I just started writing it that way there," he said. "I think I had to fill out a government form . . . and I just wrote it that way to avoid the conversation of having to explain why it was spelled wrong. And then I just kept it that way because I thought it would be confusing."
  3. He was previously married before meeting Michelle. Just as Michelle tragically lost Heath Ledger, her former lover and the father of her daughter, Matilda, Phil also experienced the passing of someone very special to him. Phil has a daughter, Agathe, from his previous marriage to Canadian artist and musician Geneviève Castrée. Geneviève died in 2016 just one year after she was diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer. Many of the songs on his album A Crow Looked at Me allude to his late wife and the ordeal of her illness, as well as the struggle of life without her.
  4. He's single again. After less than a year of getting married, Phil and Michelle split sometime in early 2019. "Michelle and Phil separated at the beginning of the year," a source told People. "It was an amicable spilt and they remain friends."