Katie Couric, boyfriend split up

ABC News' Katie Couric and her companion, green building-materials executive Brooks Perlin, have broken up after five years.

A representative for Couric, 54, confirmed the split to media outlets Tuesday. Us Weekly said Perlin, 37, is in the process of moving from Couric's Upper East Side Manhattan town house. Couric initiated the breakup, the magazine said, over the gap in their ages and having different priorities and outlooks.

As late as May, around the time she was leaving "The CBS Evening News," Couric told People of Perlin: "He's incredibly kind, caring and sensitive. He challenges me in ways I wouldn't be challenged otherwise. Even if we are not on the same page all the time, I like being in his space. I want to be a thoughtful, loving person to him in every way."

The two had met in 2006, at a cancer-research fundraiser at the Fifth Avenue hair salon Louis Licari. Couric's husband, Jay Monahan, died from colon cancer in 1998.

Perlin, Couric recalled in May, "was really cute. He asked if I wanted to have dinner sometime, and I liked that it was so direct and natural." The two began dating soon afterward but did not make their formal debut at an official event until a White House state dinner in November 2009. They first posed as a couple for photographers two weeks later at the Kennedy Center Honors.

Perlin, a triathlete, was captain of the tennis team at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., where he majored in history. From 2004 to 2006, he was a partner at Keel Capital, investing in alternative-energy companies, and then become chief financial officer and head of architectural sales for Eco Supply, a New York and Richmond, Va.-based distributor of environmentally friendly building materials.

Couric -- who has daughters Ellie, 20, a college junior, and Carrie, 15, a high school sophomore, with Monahan -- has begun letting friends set her up on dates, E! Online said.

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