After more than two decades of marriage, one of gospel music’s most watched couples is officially parting ways. Glendon “Teddy” Campbell has filed for divorce from his wife of 25 years, Gospel artist Tina Campbell, according to court documents filed April 13 in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The petition cites irreconcilable differences.

The filing notes that the couple has been separated since June 2024, meaning the split quietly predates the public announcement by nearly two years. Teddy, a drummer whose credits include The Tonight Show with Jay Leno band and American Idol, asked the court to establish visitation for the couple’s two minor children, Glendon Theodore II, 16, and Santana, 13. Spousal support was marked for future determination, and the filing indicates there are no shared community property issues to sort out, which usually signals that the financial side has already been handled privately.

Neither Tina nor Teddy has released a public statement at the time of this writing.

A marriage that grew up in public

Tina and Teddy were married in August 2000, the same year Mary Mary, the Grammy-winning duo Tina forms with her sister Erica Campbell, released their debut album, Thankful, and broke into the mainstream with “Shackles (Praise You).” The couple has four children together: Laiah Simone, Meelah Jane, Glendon II, and Santana. Teddy also has an adult daughter, Cierra, from a previous relationship.

For years, fans followed the couple’s marriage in real time on the WE tv reality series Mary Mary, which aired from 2012 to 2017. The show captured the highs of touring life and family milestones, and it also captured one of the most painful public chapters either of them has lived through.

The chapter she chose to rebuild

In 2013 and 2014, Teddy’s infidelity became public. On the series and in later interviews, Tina shared the particulars with a candor that was hard to watch and harder to look away from. She has said that the affair involved a woman who had worked for her, someone who had been, in Tina’s words, a godmother to her children, with access to her home and family. She also later revealed there had been other women.

“It broke my heart,” Tina told Steve Harvey during a 2015 joint interview with her husband, describing her initial response as a storm of rage and grief. She has spoken openly about destroying vehicles, about dark thoughts, about the kind of pain that does not know where to go. And then, in a decision that divided the internet and steadied her convictions, she chose to stay. She and Teddy renewed their vows, he stepped into ministry, and the two of them began speaking publicly to other couples about rebuilding after betrayal.

Tina has never been shy about why she made that choice. “Why would I let the whole world see my failure and not let the world see the rebuilding?” she asked at the time. For many women of faith, that answer became a kind of testimony in itself.

What this moment actually means

Which is what makes this news land the way it does. The couple did the work the world said could not be done, and it still did not end the way anyone hoped.

It is tempting, in moments like this, to render a verdict. To decide whether the rebuild was a waste, whether the forgiveness was misplaced, whether the vows were worth renewing at all. That is not a verdict any of us is qualified to issue. A marriage is a covenant between two people and the God they serve, and the rest of us are only ever watching the outside of it.

What we do know is that Tina stayed when she did not have to. That she fought when it would have been easier to walk. That she told the truth about her pain at a time when gospel women were expected to smile through it. None of that becomes less true because the marriage is ending now. Testimony is not erased by the way a chapter closes. It is simply recontextualized.

And it is worth remembering that there are four children in this story, two of them still minors, all of them accustomed to watching their parents’ life play out in public. Whatever else we feel as observers, grace for them is the bare minimum.

A prayer for the family

Sending up prayers tonight for Tina, for Teddy, for their children, and for the extended Mary Mary family. For wisdom in the legal process, tenderness in the transition, and peace for everyone involved. Faith does not promise that every storm ends in a sunrise we were expecting. It promises that the One who sees us does not leave, even when the people we loved cannot stay.

“Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16