Matt LeBlanc: My marriage was doomed

Matt LeBlanc thinks his marriage was “doomed”. The 43-year-old actor — who split from spouse Melissa McKnight in 2006, almost three years after they wed — believes the stress of working on his flop sit-com Joey and caring for their sick daughter Marina, now six, meant their union was never going to have a happy ending.

“The stress of the show not working took its toll on me, it took its toll on my marriage,” he said.

“My marriage was maybe doomed anyway, I don’t know. My daughter was diagnosed with a problem with her head and we had a nanny who sold the story about her to the papers. It was a very dark period.

“But I got through it. Don’t they say what doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger?”

Matt — who remains on good terms with Melissa — shares equal custody of Marina and decided to take a five-year gap out of public life following the end of Joey so he could spend more time with his daughter.

“I was so burnt out after Joey, I just didn’t want to work,” he said. “I wanted to not have a schedule, not be somewhere. And I was in a position where I could do that.

“I wanted to spend time with my daughter. She is the most important thing in my life, and spending time with her was the best thing I have ever done.”