I want a new life in LA... and £50m
Britain’s biggest celebrity divorce looms as Ant’s wife Lisa tells friends :
THE estranged wife of television star Ant McPartlin is making a bid to start a new life in America after the couple’s devastating break-up.
Lisa Armstrong, 42, a talented makeup artist on many of Britain’s biggest TV shows, flew to Los Angeles yesterday to begin a round of meetings with media executives.
At the same time, friends revealed that Lisa has defiantly told them ‘the gloves are off’ after 12 years of marriage. It is understood she will fight for ‘ everything she is owed’ from Ant’s £70 million fortune.
The move is a further sign of the growing bitterness between Lisa and Ant, the troubled host of ITV’s Saturday Night Takeaway, after a relationship lasting nearly 25 years.
The Mail on Sunday understands that Lisa has now dismissed any hope of getting back with Ant, 42, after she learned through the media that he was dating the couple’s former personal assistant, Anne-Marie Corbett.
In what could prove Britain’s most costly showbusiness divorce, Lisa is believed to want about £50 million, including half of Ant’s fortune and the £12 million mansion she shared with him in West London. She also wants a chunk of his future earnings, claiming she supported him as his life spiralled out of control.
In March, Ant checked himself in for treatment after crashing into a car carrying a young family while he was drunk. Since revealing his battle with drink and prescription painkillers, he has stepped down from TV com- mitments, with co-host Declan Donnelly fronting episodes of Takeaway by himself.
One friend of Lisa’s revealed: ‘She has been most loyal to Ant through what has not only been a difficult time for him, but for her also. She has been so understanding of his drinking; after all, she put up with two years of hell as she desperately tried to save him from spiralling out of control.
‘So the news of his new girlfriend has left her distraught. She feels utterly wronged in all of this. She is doing a fantastic job of holding it together but it’s really, really hard. She feels like she has lost so much but is being so brave.
‘As hard as it is, she now needs to start a new life. She felt for a long time that she has lost everything. Now she is trying to get through that and her trip to LA is to see what’s out there. Fingers crossed for her that she can find herself some brilliant work in the sunshine.’
While Ant and Lisa both want to keep their divorce out of the courts, it will be a complicated process as Ant’s earnings are divided with Dec. Less than two years ago, they signed a £30 million deal with ITV for three years, but they also own production companies and rights to the Takeaway f ormat, which they sell to ITV and around the world. As well as splitting t heir fi nances, Lisa and Ant are said to be ‘at war’ over custody of their black labrador, Hurley.