For Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake, it was all over but the press release.
Cue the publicists.
In a joint statement issued on behalf of the celebrity couple Thursday, Diaz and Timberlake confirmed the biggest non-secret in Hollywood: They're no longer a celebrity couple.
"We have, in fact, ended our romantic relationship, and have done so mutually and as friends, with continued love and respect for one another," the statement said.
Diaz and Timberlake said they would have preferred to avoid the press-release route—"out of respect for the time we've spent together."
The ex-twosome chalked up their confirmation letter as a response to "recent speculation" and "inaccurate stories that are being reported by the media."
Diaz, 34, and Timberlake, 25, didn't note why or when they broke up, leaving "recent speculation" to do the job.
According to the buzz, Diaz and Timberlake uncoupled last month. The Jan. 22 Us Weekly narrows the split to some time after Timberlake hosted Saturday Night Live on Dec. 16 to sometime before a Diaz Christmas getaway to Vail, Colorado.
Diaz and Timberlake were a couple for more than three years, having begun dating in 2003.
No strangers to breakup rumors or when-will-they-marry speculation, Diaz and Timberlake were unusually tight-lipped when the New Year brought new reports that they were kaput.
The ex-couple watch intensified when Timberlake attended the Jan. 3 premiere of his new movie, Alpha Dog, minus Diaz. Even Tuesday's People's Choice Awards couldn't bring the pair together: Diaz attended the Los Angeles gala in person; Timberlake appeared via satellite—from nearby Anaheim.
Timberlake, who friends insist to Us Weekly was a one-star man while dating Diaz, seemingly has wasted no time getting his sexy back.
Last week, E! Online columnist Ted Casablanca reported Timberlake was spotted at the Alpha Dog post-premiere party in the company of Scarlett Johansson, with whom he shot a video, "What Goes Around," right after Christmas.
The music-video casting of Johansson, 22, was cited by Us Weekly as the "final straw" for the Diaz-Timberlake tandem, with Diaz said to be jealous of the younger actress and Timberlake said to be tired of Diaz's jealousy.
Timberlake and Johansson, recently uncoupled from Josh Hartnett, have copped to no more than a friendship.
Timberlake is likewise "friends, nothing more," his rep recently told E! Online senior editor Marc Malkin, with Kate Hudson, recently divorced from rocker Chris Robinson, and recently uncoupled from reputed beau Owen Wilson. Timberlake was among the New Year's revelers who rang in 2007 at the Los Angeles home of Hudson, 27.
Diaz, meanwhile, is said by Us Weekly to be commiserating with Charlie's Angels costar Drew Barrymore, recently uncoupled from Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti.
Removing himself from the breakup vortex that is currently Hollywood, Timberlake is scheduled to be some 340 miles north on Thursday night for the San Jose, California, date of his arena tour.
Diaz, who appeared in only three movies during her Timberlake era, won't appear in another one this year, per the Internet Movie Database, though she'll be heard as the voice of Princess Fiona in Shrek the Third, due out this summer.
During their run as a couple, Diaz and Timberlake never appeared more united than when they banded together against paparazzi, with whom they occasionally legally tangled. The most recent incident came last September, when Diaz accused a photog of trying to hit her and Timberlake with a car.
Diaz and Timberlake also sounded as if they were on the same page about marriage: Neither wanted one.
"I'm a commitment phobe," Diaz said on the Ellen DeGeneres Show last November. "Don’t want to do it."
And now she won't have to. Not with Timberlake, anyway.