France's Strauss-Kahn, wife have separated: media

PARIS (Reuters) - Disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and his wife have separated, as his legal battles run on over a New York sex assault case and his alleged involvement with a prostitution ring, weekly magazine Closer reported on Thursday.

Anne Sinclair, a wealthy heiress who recently relaunched her media career as a news editor at the Huffington Post's French edition, threw Strauss-Kahn out of their home in central Paris a month ago and the two are living separately, the magazine said.

The magazine did not cite any sources for the story that appeared in its online edition.

A source close to Strauss-Kahn confirmed the report of the separation, saying it had happened approximately a month ago and that Strauss-Kahn was living at a separate residence in Paris.

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The pair have been married for 20 years and Sinclair, a popular TV journalist for years who fell for the former finance minister after interviewing him, stuck close by him when he was accused in May 2011 of trying to rape a New York hotel maid.

The scandal forced Strauss-Kahn to quit his International Monetary Fund post and destroyed his hopes of running for French president in the April-May 2012 election for the Socialist Party, which instead won power under Francois Hollande.

Closer's report that the couple are now leading separate lives comes after weeks of media speculation that the relationship was under pressure, in part as Strauss-Kahn grew depressed at his lack of career options.

"He's in a bad way. It's very sad," a person who knows Strauss-Kahn and recently saw him socially told Reuters this month.

"He's mostly just at home on his own while Anne is out and about with her new job. He's shunned by everybody."

Strauss-Kahn is the target of a civil case by the hotel maid who says he assaulted her in his suite at the New York Sofitel. He also is being formally investigated in France over alleged links to a prostitution ring in the northern city of Lille.

(Reporting By Catherine Bremer, additional reporting by Joseph Ax in Washington; Editing by Michael Roddy)