Nicolas Cage secretly split from his wife five months ago

Nicolas Cage and Alice Kim split in January, but have only just confirmed the news. Photo/AP

Nicolas Cage and his wife Alice Kim have separated.

The pair - who have son Kal-el Coppola Cage, 10, together - secretly split in January, Cage's representative confirmed to People.

Cage and Kim met in 2004, when she was just 19 and working as a waitress at a Los Angeles restaurant, and got engaged two months later. They would have celebrated their 12th wedding anniversary in August.

The 52-year-old actor was previously married to Lisa Marie Presley for almost four months in 2002 and to Patricia Arquette from 1995 to 2001.

He also has a 25-year-old son, Weston, from a previous relationship with model Christina Fulton.

There is a 20-year age-gap between the pair and Cage previously revealed his Korean mother-in-law was unimpressed when she first met him.

He said: "When my mother-in-law came to the house for the first time, before even hello or nice to meet you, all I got was, 'She's too young!' And so I knew this was going to be an uphill battle."

Cage added that he "made a clear decision" to marry into another culture, saying: "I made a very clear decision to marry out of my own zip code. I mean, way out of my own zip code. I married into another culture, and it's interesting because in Korea they call me the Son-in-Law."

He revealed the couple's wedding was pushed forward so that Kim could travel with him to South Africa while he was making Lord Of War, explaining: "You can connect the dots ... and we did it because we loved each other."

- Bang! Showbiz