BRIGHTON and Hove's golden couple have split after 18 years together.

Zoe Ball and her DJ husband Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim, announced their separation on Saturday night, adding that they remain great friends.

In a joint statement posted on Twitter they revealed they would continue to raise their two children together, living next door but one to each other in Millionaire's Row (Western Esplanade) in Hove.

The statement said: "With great sadness we are announcing that we have separated.

"After many exciting adventures together over the last 18 years we have come to the end of our rainbow.

"We are still great friends and will continue to support each other and raise our beautiful children together, living next door but one. X Zoe and Norm."

It is not clear when they split up.

The pair met in Ibiza in the late 1990s, when they were both known for their hard partying ways.

They married in a lavish ceremony at Babbington House in Somerset in 1999 and moved to Hove, where they have lived since.

Zoe, 45, and Norman, 52, have always been regulars on the Brighton and Hove social scene.

Norman is regularly at the Amex watching Albion play and Zoe hosts various charity events each year.

The couple had endured a number of rocky patches in their relationship.

They split for a few months in 2003 after Ball had an affair with DJ Dan Peppe.

And just last year she was pictured in December having a drunken kiss with 22-year-old Tay Tay Starzh of boyband Franklin Lake.

She insisted at the time that she and Cook had laughed it off, saying: "He has always said he wants his gravestone to read 'Norman was a very patient man'. And that sums it up really."

After the picture emerged she told how they had a "good understanding of each other" and said the reasons they met and fell in love initially were still there.

The Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two host also spoke of the couple's future plans, saying they hoped to run a "pub, come post-office, come pet shop" when they retired.

The DJ, who will be performing a charity gig in London as part of the Oxjam festival next month, described himself and Ball as "a good tag team" in raising their children, Woody, 15, and Nelly, five.