BY: DM
Published 2 months ago
Another marriage bites the dust. “13 Reasons Why” actress Tommy Dorfman has filed for divorce from her wife, Elise Williams. Dorfman first crossed paths with Williams in 2021 on the dating app Hinge. The encounter happened just months after the actress split from her first husband, Peter Zurkuhlen.
Dorfman and Williams’ spark was instant, and Dorfman later revealed in a May 2024 Vogue essay that they got engaged just two months into dating. The duo kept their wedding plans under wraps until Dorfman surprised fans in May 2024. She and Williams slipped away to Malibu late in 2023 for an intimate elopement ceremony. Per People magazine, Dorfman described the day as “perfect,” complete with a concert celebration under the stars that same night.
However, their marriage has come to an end, leaving questions about what could have caused their split. Here is everything we know about Dorfman and Williams’ divorce.
Tommy Dorfman and Elise Williams are done.
Dorfman filed for divorce from Williams on May 16 in New York City, ending nearly two years of marriage. Court documents obtained by E! News confirm Dorfman submitted her petition in Manhattan Supreme Court, citing the dissolution of their marriage as “irretrievable breakdown,” and requesting joint custody of their Great Dane, Fiona. The filing contradicts Dorfman’s previous claim that Williams had shifted her views on life and love.
“That’s the thing about falling in love though; your responsibility barometer isn’t always where it should be,” Dorfman wrote in Vogue. “Love, for us, required that nauseating combination of naivete, delusion, and fate.”
Signs of Dorfman and Williams’ breakup first surfaced late last year. In December 2024, Dorfman shared an Instagram carousel summarizing her year with one image captioned, “heartbreak.” Another showed Fiona thriving in their new Brooklyn apartment, captioned “just the two of us now.” That quiet hint marked the first public acknowledgement that their fairytale might be shifting.
Tommy Dorfman was previously married to Peter Zurkuhlen.
Prior to her relationship with Williams, Dorfman was married to Peter Zurkuhlen. The pair split in February 2022, bringing an end to their five-year marriage after over half a decade together, per TMZ. The filing cited irreconcilable differences, and court documents list their date of separation as June 1, 2021, just weeks before Dorfman publicly embraced her identity as a transgender woman.
Dorfman and Zurkuhlen first linked up in 2005 through a mutual friend, but it wasn’t until a decade later that sparks flew. They got engaged in April 2015 and tied the knot in November 2016. Behind the scenes, though, things had quietly changed. By mid-2021, Dorfman had been “privately identifying and living as a woman” for roughly a year before going public in a landmark Time magazine profile that July.
“For a year now, I have been privately identifying and living as a woman — a trans woman,” Tommy shared. “It’s funny to think about coming out, because I haven’t gone anywhere. I view today as a reintroduction to me as a woman, having made a transition medically.”
Now, Dorfman is undoubtedly focusing on the next chapter of her life. Her divorce from Williams is still pending, with the custody of their Great Dane hanging in the balance.
Would you split custody of a pet with an ex? Comment below!
