Kate Hudson, Chris Robinson Separate

Actress Kate Hudson and her husband, Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson, are splitting, PEOPLE has learned exclusively.

The You, Me and Dupree star’s rep, Brad Cafarelli, confirms that the couple are separating after nearly six years of marriage.

Hudson, 27, and Robinson, 39, wed on New Year’s Eve 2000 after dating for about a year. Their son, Ryder Russell, was born Jan. 7, 2004.

The pair first clicked at a party in New York City in May 2000, and moved in together just days later. “When I met Chris, everything just seemed to become very clear,” Hudson said in 2003. Three months after they met, Robinson presented Hudson with a diamond ring her rep called “a commitment to their relationship.”

They were married by an Ute Indian shaman on Dec. 31, 2000, at the Old Snowmass, Colo., home of Hudson’s mother, Goldie Hawn, and her longtime partner, Kurt Russell. (Hudson’s father, singer-comedian Bill Hudson, did not attend.) After that, the two were seldom apart for long.

“We try to, as much as we can, schedule our working life around each other,” Hudson told PEOPLE in 2002, adding that she hoped their future would bring “millions of babies.”

“I’m in such a better place as a husband, as a part of a family and a musician,” said Robinson, who wrote the song “Katie Dear” on his 2002 solo album, New Earth Mud, about his wife: “Watch her sleeping/With dreams in her mind/Her heart is beating/In perfect time with mine.”

Still, Hudson admitted to PEOPLE in 2003, “In the beginning we were so volatile. We were so in love and passionate, and then we would just hate each other and throw stuff around, and then we would travel to Paris for a week.”

After Ryder was born in 2004, Hudson told PEOPLE of her relationship with Robinson, “We’re sharing something so gigantic now. I think it’s the best we’ve ever felt being together.”

But rumors of marital discord surfaced the same year – and were quickly shot down. “They are very happy,” a family friend told PEOPLE in August. “They are not going anywhere. When you are true friends with your mate, (your relationship) will withstand everything.”

Just last month, it seemed all was well with the couple. Asked if the laid-back Robinson had any pet peeves about her, Hudson told PEOPLE, “I can sip on the same cold cup of coffee all day long. It just drives him nuts. My mom actually does the same thing and it drives Kurt nuts too.”

It was the first marriage for Hudson; Robinson was previously wed to Lala Sloatman.