Actors Keith Powers and Ryan Destiny have called it quits after four years together.
“They’re taking time to focus on themselves and their emerging careers but are remaining close friends,” a source close to the former couple tells PEOPLE.
Powers, 29, and Destiny, 27, first met in 2015 at a Teen Vogue party, and they further connected on Instagram.
“For a minute we tried to hide it for numerous reasons, but as human beings sometimes you want to just shout to the world ‘I love this person and I’m happy!'” Destiny said of their relationship in a 2019 joint interview with We the Urban. “We try to find a balance. I’m already a private person and very career-driven so reminding people that I am my own person is important.”
“It is so important for our people to see healthy Black love,” added Powers, best known for playing Ronnie DeVoe in BET’s biopic, The New Edition Story. “Whether it’s a relationship, marriage or even friendships. Black love gives us hope. When you see Black love flourish, it’s powerful.”
Neither Destiny nor Powers has publicly addressed their split.
When Destiny appeared on the Wendy Williams Show in 2019, she dished further about her relationship with Powers and her thoughts about fans wanting her to date her co-star, Quincy Brown. He played her boyfriend on the Fox music drama Star, which was canceled after three seasons.
“They’re crazy, y’all,” Destiny said to Williams at the time, as theGrio reported. “They’re crazy. They just like, you know there are fan pages that are for me and Quincy and then there’s fan pages that are for me and Keith. And they go on all of our pages sometimes if we post a picture of me and Keith or if Quincy posts a picture of me and him.”
“They’re just like you can see it in her eyes, it’s like she’s all for him. She’s not, you know, really supposed to be with Keith,” the actress added. “It can get really disrespectful and luckily we just are kind of used to it now and we just–you need to find a balance in social media I think and just ignore it. You got to ignore it.”
When Williams then noted that Destiny loves Keith, the actress and singer confirmed, saying, “I love Keith so much. That’s my baby.”
In a 2018 interview with theGrio, Destiny said, “It’s amazing being in a relationship that happened so naturally. I didn’t want something; I wasn’t looking for anything.”
She added, “I was literally just living my life and having fun and we would just run into each other and things would just happen very naturally and very organically and I’m glad it did. We’re very happy.”
Powers and Destiny’s four-year relationship was once on full display on Instagram, though the last post of the two on Destiny’s IG was, ironically enough, two days after Valentine’s Day in 2021. But now that the love is gone, fans are mourning their breakup on Twitter. One wrote, “Love doesn’t exist anymore.”
Another commented, “I’M SICK! I loved them together!” A third added, “this is deeply distressing news.”
Meanwhile, Powers can next be seen in two upcoming Netflix films — The Uglies, and Perfect Find starring Gabrielle Union. Destiny is set to star in the biographical sports film Flint Strong.
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