The UnitedHealthcare CEO who was fatally gunned down outside a Manhattan hotel reportedly lived separately from his wife – and her home now has a security guard posted outside after a sick bomb threat hoax.

Brian Thompson, 50, and his wife, Paulette “Pauley” Thompson, had been dwelling in separate homes less than a mile from each other in Maple Grove, Minnesota, for years, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Hours after a cold-blooded killer shot and killed Thompson on Wednesday morning in Midtown, both homes in the quiet suburban Minneapolis neighborhood received a bomb threat that evening, Maple Grove police officials said.

“No devices or suspicious items were located during the investigation,” a statement from Maple Grove Police Department reads.

“The case is considered an active investigation, while the incident appears to be a hoax.”

The execution of Thompson — which unfolded in front of witnesses in one of the most heavily trafficked places on the planet — shook his and Paulette Thompson’s neighbors, who were polite but tight-lipped Thursday as national attention turned to their tony cul-de-sac community.

A security guard and UnitedHealthcare publicist were stationed outside Paulette Thompson’s house Thursday.

One neighbor told The Post that the guard had been posted outside the house throughout the night.

“It’s so sad,” said another neighbor, who did not want to be named. 

“I am very sad for the family.”

Yet another neighbor collected a gift basket for the Thompson family.

Thompson, a father of two boys, purchased his separate $1 million home near his family in 2018, according to public real estate records. 

It’s unclear exactly when the spouses split, but Paulette, 51, notably kept her husband out of her work biography at the Park Nicollet Health Services clinic in Minneapolis, where she works as a physical therapist. 

“I love spending time with my two boys and taking them to all of their activities,” she wrote about her personal life. “I also love boating, spending time with family and friends, playing piano, biking, and traveling.”

Following her husband’s death, Paulette told FOX9 that she was horrified to learn about the fatal shooting. 

“Brian was an incredibly loving, generous, talented man who truly lived life to the fullest and touched so many lives,” she said in a statement.

“Most importantly, Brian was an incredibly loving father to our two sons and will be greatly missed.”

Both Brian’s and Paulette Thompson’s homes had that statement posted on their front doors. 

Paulette Thompson also told NBC that her estranged husband had been receiving threats involving his job, which oversees the largest private insurance company in the nation.

“There had been some threats,” she said. “Basically, I don’t know, a lack of coverage? I don’t know details. I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him.”

Former FBI supervisor Rob D’Amico told the outlet that it wouldn’t be difficult for a person with a grudge to track Thompson’s movements to the Hilton, where he was set to speak on Wednesday. 

“Even a layman can find there’s so much on the internet now and people put so much out there,” said D’Amico, who is now a security consultant. 

The NYPD has said the shooting was clearly planned, with clues pointing to Thompson’s job as a likely motivator for the murder. 

Authorities found engravings on the bullets used by the assassin — which appear to include the words “deny,” “depose” and “defend” — words eerily similar to a 2010 book condemning the insurance business, titled “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why insurance companies don’t pay claims and what you can do about it.”

The UnitedHealth Group is the largest private insurer in the nation, with a long and controversial history of rejecting customers’ claims, a key issue that sparked protests in April and July at its Minnesota headquarters, where Thompson was based. 

What we know about the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson

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• Brian Thompson, the CEO of insurance giant UnitedHealthcare, was gunned down Wednesday outside a luxury Midtown hotel in a “brazen, targeted attack,” police said.
• Thompson was named CEO of UnitedHealth in April 2021. He joined the company in 2004. He was one of several senior executives at the company under investigation by the Department of Justice.
• Thompson’s wife, Paulette, said her husband had been getting threats before he was killed.
• Thompson’s shooting led to sick support online, and even spurred a tasteless lookalike competition in NYC.
• A person of interest has been nabbed by police officers inside a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa.
• The suspect has been identified as Luigi Mangione, 26, originally from Towson, Md. He’s an Ivy League graduate who hated the medical community.

Follow along with The Post’s live updates on the news surrounding Brian Thompson’s murder.

The company, ranked fourth on the Fortune 500, is also facing a Department of Justice antitrust investigation.

An elderly woman and a man in his 50s visited the house briefly, while another woman took flowers inside and emerged dabbing her eyes. 

One neighbor said the high-powered CEO mostly kept to himself.

“I actually didn’t know him,” she said.