Chip Wilson, 71, and his wife Shannon “Summer” Wilson, 52, are ending their 20-year marriage without a prenuptial agreement, according to two people familiar with their conversations who spoke to Bloomberg.
The Lululemon founder, whose net worth stands at $6.1 billion, and the athleisure brand’s founding lead designer have ongoing family litigation in the British Columbia Supreme Court. The files were first filed in April and remain sealed.
The couple wed in 2002 and built their partnership on both personal and professional collaboration. Shannon was one of Lululemon’s earliest hires, and Chip later credited her with playing a huge part in growing the company into an $11 billion brand.
Both Wilsons departed Lululemon more than a decade ago, yet their financial ties to the company remain substantial. Chip retains an 8.6% stake worth nearly $1 billion, making him one of the apparel maker’s largest shareholders. Shannon holds a 1% stake valued at approximately $100 million and went on to found the luxury retail brand Kit and Ace.
Chip, who was born in the United States but raised in Canada, stepped down as chairman of Lululemon Athletica’s board in 2013 following a series of public controversies.
“Quite frankly, some women’s bodies just actually don’t work for [the pants],” he said at the time, notoriously blaming overweight customers for a recall of sheer yoga pants that left women’s rears visible through the fabric.
He continued to criticize the brand after his departure, slamming its “whole diversity and inclusion thing” and complaining that the company had grown bland.
“I think the definition of a brand is that you’re not everything to everybody. You’ve got to be clear that you don’t want certain customers coming in,” he said in a 2024 Forbes interview, adding that the chain had “become like the Gap, everything to everybody.”
He went further in his assessment of the company’s marketing choices, blasting the use of “unhealthy” and “sickly” people in ads who he said are “not inspirational.”
Despite no longer holding an executive role, Chip has actively leveraged his shareholder position to influence corporate direction. In December 2025, he engaged in a proxy battle against Lululemon’s current leadership, attacking them as “complacent” amid declining sales.
The sealed British Columbia court filings mark the formal dissolution of a partnership that helped define modern athleisure wear. Shannon’s design work helped establish the aesthetic that transformed Lululemon from a yoga studio side project into a global retail force.
The proxy battle Chip launched late last year signaled his ongoing appetite for corporate confrontation even as his personal life unraveled behind sealed court documents.