https://www.instagram.com/p/BQgs7skgnAv/ 
 
 Ricki Lake’s ex-husband Christian Evans has passed away. In an emotional Instagram post on Tuesday, February 14, Lake revealed that Evans battled bipolar disorder. 
 
 “It is with a heavy heart that I share that my beloved soulmate, Christian Evans, has passed,” the former talk show host, 48, wrote alongside a sweet photo of herself with Evans. “The world didn’t understand this man, but I did. He succumbed to his life long struggle with bipolar disorder. For anyone who has ever lost a family member or friend to mental illness, my heart goes out to you. I am a greater person for having known him and spent the past 6 and a half years of my life with him. He was a man of love and what mends my broken heart today is knowing that he is finally at peace and his spirit is free. Rest in peace, my love.” 
 
 Lake was married to Evans for two years. The couple got engaged in August 2011 and surprised fans by eloping in April 2012. The Ricki Lake Show star split from the jewelry designer in October 2014 and filed for divorce a week later citing irreconcilable differences. 
 
 Lake was previously married to Rob Sussman. Together they share sons Milo, 19, and Owen, 15. 
 
 Us Weekly has reached out to Lake's rep for comment. 
 
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 Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now! ||||| A post shared by Ricki Lake (@rickilake) on Feb 14, 2017 at 3:46pm PST 
 
 Ricki Lake‘s ex-husband has died following a lifelong struggle with bipolar disorder. 
 
 “It is with a heavy heart that I share that my beloved soulmate, Christian Evans has passed,” Lake, 48, said in a Tuesday Instagram post of the former couple during happier times. “For anyone who has ever lost a family member or friend to mental illness, my heart goes out to you.” 
 
 Evans was in his 40s. 
 
 “The world didn’t understand this man, but I did. He succumbed to his life long struggle with bipolar disorder,” the former talk-show host explained. 
 
 Lake and Evans — who have no children together — split in 2014 after three years of marriage. 
 
 “I am a greater person for having known him and spent the past 6 and a half years of my life with him,” she continued. “He was a man of love and what mends my broken heart today is knowing that he is finally at peace and his spirit is free.” 
 
 Evans was a jewelry designer and met Lake in the summer of 2010. “He’s everything to me,” she told People in 2011. 
 
 Lake has two sons with ex-husband Rob Sussman. ||||| Ricki Lake was a self-proclaimed “cynic” about marriage — but that was before Christian Evans came into her life. 
 
 After a messy divorce from Rob Sussman in 2005, the actress and talk show host, 48, didn’t expect to fall in love again. But when a mutual friend introduced Lake to the jewelry designer in 2010, the pair became inseparable. 
 
 “She’s my soulmate,” Evans told PEOPLE in 2012. 
 
 The couple got engaged in August of 2011 and eloped on April 8 the following year in an intimate outdoor wedding that was secret, secluded and, “something just for us,” said Lake. 
 
 In attendance at the coastal California wedding were Lake and Evans’ beloved dogs ― Jeffie, a Goldendoodle, and Pacha, an English bulldog — Lake’s glam squad and Evans’ hairstylist pal. 
 
 During the ceremony, held at a private cottage at the San Ysidro Ranch in Montecito, California, Lake read three pages of “very personal” handwritten vows filled with “how he is an inspiration to me” while Evans opted for “off-the-cuff” approach. 
 
 Though Lake — who is mother two sons Milo and Owen — considered a large wedding, she and Evans opted for something more personal. “At the end of the day, the best solution was to have our moment of being together and getting married,” said Evans. 
 
 “I’m so happy,” Lake told PEOPLE after saying “I do” to Evans in 2012. “It feels like the most joyous time in my life.” 
 
 “It was exactly what we wanted,” Lake said of the 20-minute nondenominational ceremony. 
 
 After two-and-a-half years of marriage, Lake separated from Evans on Oct. 9, 2014 and filed for divorce a week later, according to court filings in Los Angeles. Their divorce was finalized in 2015. 
 
 On Tuesday, Lake revealed in an emotional Instagram and Facebook post that her ex-husband had passed away after a battle with bipolar disorder. 
 
 “It is with a heavy heart that I share that my beloved soulmate, Christian Evans has passed,” Lake began the post. “The world didn’t understand this man, but I did. He succumbed to his life long struggle with bipolar disorder.” 
 
 “For anyone who has ever lost a family member or friend to mental illness, my heart goes out to you. I am a greater person for having known him and spent the past 6 and a half years of my life with him,” she continued. “He was a man of love and what mends my broken heart today is knowing that he is finally at peace and his spirit is free.” 
 
 She ended the post with, “Rest in peace, my love.”
– "The world didn't understand this man, but I did." That heartbreaking statement appeared on Ricki Lake's Instagram feed on Tuesday in which she announced the death of ex-husband Christian Evans, who Page Six reported died after struggling with mental illness. The 48-year-old former talk-show host, who called Evans her "beloved soulmate" in her post, eloped with Evans in April 2012 and split with him in October 2014 due to irreconcilable differences, Us Weekly reports. But despite the end of their marriage, Lake's love for Evans persisted. She noted in her Instagram message that Evans had long battled bipolar disorder and said she was a "greater person for having known him." "What mends my heart today is knowing he is finally at peace and his spirit is free," she wrote, adding, "Rest in peace, my love." People looks back on their love story. (Lake was once in the news for promoting home births.)