60 Minutes Australia journalist Tara Brown. Photo / Supplied
60 Minutes presenter Tara Brown has split with her husband of 16 years, according to reports.
Woman's Day reports that 48-year-old Brown and her husband, TV executive John McEvoy, initially separated before her much-reported stint in a Beirut prison in April.
The presenter and her colleagues were detained after a botched 'child recovery' operation in the Lebanese capital, spending two weeks in prison before the Nine Network negotiated their release and return home to Australia.
While McEvoy was present during meetings between Nine and relatives of those locked up in Lebanon, he was not present at Sydney Airport when his wife finally arrived on home soil.
Woman's Day reports that the couple, parents to seven-year-old Jack and five-year-old Tom - had been "struggling for quite a while" and had already made the decision to split before Brown's ill-fated April trip to Lebanon.
Brown has not spoken publicly about the botched operation since her return to Australia after being released from jail, when in a brief interview with 60 Minutes colleague Michael Usher, she said of Lebanese authorities: "I thought, 'We're journalists, we're doing our job - and they will see reason, they will understand that'."
Brown and several Nine colleagues were arrested in Beirut on April 6, along with Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner and recovery agent Adam Whittington, his colleague Craig Michaels and two Lebanese men, Khaled Barbour and Mohammed Hamza.
They were taken into custody after Whittington's team snatched Faulkner's two children, Lahela, five, and Noah, three, from a busy suburban street, injuring their Lebanese grandmother.
Faulkner and the 60 Minutes team spent almost two weeks in prison, and were released when the children's father, Ali Elamine, agreed to drop personal charges of kidnap against them in return for a payout, reportedly up to $500,000, from Nine.
Faulkner agreed to give up custody of her children in order to obtain her freedom.
There is as yet no official statement from either Brown or McEvoy regarding the reports of their split.