SEX AND THE CITY star KIM CATTRALL split with third husband MARK LEVINSON last December (02) because the pair were "going in different directions".

Kim, who plays man-magnet Samantha Jones in the popular American TV show, was wed to Mark for less than five years before the pair admitted defeat - a feeling which the actress describes as "like death".

She laments, "To go through the pain of separation is tough, because your dream of spending your life with someone is no longer a reality. In a relationship you either grow together or apart and that's what was happening with us.

"I loved Mark very much but I realised, and I think he did too, that we were going in different directions. We did what we could to change it, but it was inevitable."

She adds, "For the period of time that we were together it was wonderful and magical and tough and demanding - all those things. But at this juncture we both as adults thought that we needed to go our own separate ways.

"It's just like the death of something. It was the death of our union."

29/07/2003 13:59