Joost van der Westhuizen has filed for divorce from Amor Vittone.

The former Springbok rugby star told Beeld newspaper that he had acted "on legal advice" and started proceedings to end his marriage.

Van der Westhuizen's lawyer, Robert Klinkenberg, said the sheriff of the court in Randburg had served Vittone with divorce papers on Thursday.

According to Beeld, Klinkenberg would not discuss the reasons for the divorce. "I can, however, confirm that Joost was [filing for divorce] for completely different reasons than the video debacle of last year," Beeld quotes him as saying.

Last year, a video surfaced which showed Van der Westhuizen cavorting with another woman and apparently taking cocaine. Although he initially denied that it was him, Van der Westhuizen later admitted to appearing in the video.

Although he and Vittone had repeatedly said that they were working to save their marriage, Van der Westhuizen moved out of their plush Dainfern home earlier this year.

Van der Westhuizen told Beeld that he was "truly sorry that the marriage had come to an end in this way". However, he would not provide further details on the reasons for the divorce.

"It is on record that Amor forgave me in public in February already for the video scandal. The reasons for me [filing now], therefore have nothing to do with the video," he told Beeld.

"I still love Amor and our children deeply. I respect them and will say nothing bad or negative about them."

"Until very recently, I did everything in my power to try to save our marriage. I wore my knees out crawling and pleading. Now we have reached the end of the road."