Ashley Judd and Dario Franchitti are separating after 11 years of marriage. Judd's spokeswoman confirmed a Tuesday report from People magazine that the 44-year-old actress and 39-year-old Scottish race car driver are ending their marriage.

AP file

Ashley Judd and husband, Dario Franchitti in 2012.

The star of such films as "Double Jeopardy" and "Kiss the Girls" says in a statement that the pair will "always be family" and will continue to cherish their relationship based on love, integrity and respect.

Last year, Judd starred in the ABC series "Missing" and attended the Democratic National Convention as a Tennessee delegate.

Franchitti has won the Indianapolis 500 race three times.

The couple wed in a private ceremony in Scotland in 2001. 

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It was prescription steroids. Ashley Judd says there was no other reason for her apparently puffy face -- not plastic surgery (botched or otherwise) or diet issues, but a medication reaction. But as she told TODAY's Natalie Morales Thursday, there there was also no excuse for the way she was pounced on for her appearance.

"I don't think that being a public figure makes it legitimate to criticize people the way they are currently criticized in this cultural climate," said the actress, who turns 44 next week.

She said she was offended by the "nasty," "vitriolic" and "gloating tone" the comments took.

But there's a bigger picture here, one she discussed at length in an essay in The Daily Beast. Namely that the objectification and scrutiny of both men and women has gotten out of control. "We're taught not to admit how much it hurts," she said. "Just go buy more hairspray, get back to the gym or buy another butt-clencher exercise DVD, that's how to undo the hurt. When in fact that's just contributing to the pain."

"My puffy face moment is another person's big butt moment," she said. "What happened to me is very common.... We all go through it."

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In an exclusive interview airing tonight on “Nightly News,” actress Ashley Judd addresses recent criticism about her appearance, saying the negative comments about her "puffy face" were spurred by society’s objectification of girls and women.

In March, while Judd was promoting her new TV series, gossip magazines said Judd’s face looked fuller – and the rumors started swirling. One of Judd’s representatives told media outlets she had been battling an ongoing sinus infection and taking medication, but that didn’t stop people from speculating that she had had plastic surgery. 

Judd addressed the rumors this week in an opinion article that appeared in The Daily Beast, writing that her appearance was due to taking steroids for a sinus infection.

“When I am sick for more than a month and on medication (multiple rounds of steroids), the accusation is that because my face looks puffy, I have ‘clearly had work done,’ with otherwise credible reporters with great bravo ‘identifying’ precisely the procedures I allegedly have had done,” she wrote.

This evening on “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams,” Judd -– who is currently starring in ABC’s new show “Missing” -- reflects on the criticism she’s endured throughout her prolific career.

“I think it’s hatred of women that invites the criticism. I think it’s the objectification of girls and women and this hypersexualization of our society that invites the criticism. It doesn’t have anything to do with me, really, and how I look,” she told NBC News.

Judd said after she took the steroids for her infection and appeared in public, “there was no presumption of goodwill.”

“The conversation went straight to, ‘Oh my gosh.’ And then I started to catch the double bind where, you know, my face looks puffy, 'She's had work,' you know? And then, look at the same image in a different interpretation by a separate set of people is, 'Oh, come on, she doesn't even have any wrinkles at all, she's clearly had work,'” Judd said. “So I look bad, I've had work. I look too good, I've had work.”

Watch the full interview tonight on "Nightly News."