Fox & Friends host Ainsley Earhardt has split from her eight-years-younger second husband – and sources tell DailyMail.com it’s all over a long-ago affair he had with one of her best friends.

Earhardt, a favorite of Donald Trump, has been living apart from her husband, former Clemson starting quarterback Will Proctor for months, sources say.

The couple share two-year-old daughter Hayden, who turns three next month and who Earhardt has regularly spoken about on the Fox News show.

She and Proctor now both have their own apartment in buildings on New York’s Upper East Side, just 12 blocks from each other.

Earhardt, 42, who regularly stresses her Christian faith, confirmed the split in an exclusive statement to DailyMail.com. But she did not say whether either side has filed for divorce.

After much prayer and careful consideration, Will and I have separated,’ she said in her statement.

‘I am grateful to Fox for their support and allowing me to spend all day, every day after the morning show with my child.

‘I am fully committed to parenting and doing what is always best for my darling little girl and would appreciate privacy and prayers during this difficult time.’

DailyMail.com reached out several times to Proctor, a private credit investment advisor at the New York financial firm Neuberger Berman, but he did not respond.

Sources close to Earhardt say the couple split after trying for years to piece their marriage back together following her husband’s affair.

‘It was all the more devastating for Ainsley that he cheated with someone who she considered one of her closest friends,’ the source said.

‘Any marriage break-up is difficult but this made it extra heartwrenching for her.

‘She has evidence that proves the affair,’ the source added, although she would not go into what that evidence is.

The couple met on a blind date and married in Proctor’s home town of Winter Park, Florida, in 2012, three years after Earhardt divorced her high school sweetheart Kevin McKinney, whom she had married in 2005 in San Antonio, Texas.

The couple were regularly pictured together at social events, but in recent months, Earhardt has dropped any mention of her husband.

When she celebrated her September 20 birthday on air with Fox & Friends co-hosts Steve Doocey and Brian Kilmeade, his name was never brought up. Instead Earhardt said her sister – teacher Elise, who lives in Charleston, South Carolina – was helping her raise Hayden.

And in a profile with Elle Magazine in August, he was similarly airbrushed out of her life.

Even in a piece she did with My Morning Routine in which she detailed her life from the moment she got up, she neither said anything nor was she asked about her husband.

‘I wake up around 3:00am when my alarm goes off, and I snooze for a few minutes. When I finally roll out of bed, I check the baby monitor to make sure that Hayden, my daughter, is okay,’ she said.

‘After I get up, I get ready and go into the kitchen before I leave to grab either a cup of coffee or a glass of water. I make sure to get all my ducks in a row before I head out the door and go to work.

‘On my way to work, I read my Jesus Calling daily devotion and put in earbuds and listen to hymns. Once I’ve read my devotion, I read through what’s coming up on the show one more time (because I’ve studied it the night before).’

At night, she said she likes to go to bed around 9 pm — ‘but that never happens. My daughter likes to stay up as late as possible—she gets that from me.

‘I’m a night owl and I love alone time when the house is finally quiet.’

Earhardt, suffered what Elle called ‘a wrenching miscarriage’ before her successful pregnancy. Now, friends say, her life revolves around her daughter and her faith.

‘Everytime I call her she has to put the phone down to get something for Hayden,’ one friend said.

Sources in the apartment building where Proctor lives say they often see him with his daughter.

Earhardt made her name on Fox News reporting her ‘Ainsley Across America’ segment for network star Sean Hannity after joining the network in 2007.

She then joined the new show Fox & Friends First and learned she had got her current job while on maternity leave after having Hayden.

She joined the show on the day before ‘Super Tuesday’ when Trump effectively locked up the Republican nomination for president.

She had previously worked for a local stations in her hometown of Columbia, South Carolina, and in San Antonio, Texas.

She interviewed Trump at the White House in August, the day after his lawyer Michael Cohen reached a plea deal with prosecutors. The Associated Press called her interview ‘by turn sympathetic and gently probing.’

‘To be fair to Earhardt, she was caught for this interview between apocalyptic expectations and an audience filled with people who love Trump and hate journalists,’ added the AP.