Drugs, money laundering and the man who destroyed Chaplin’s girl

KIERA CHAPlIN is a smart, sassy woman with the sort of knockout figure that makes your eyes pop. She’s worth a pretty penny, too, as one of our wealthiest young actresses, with a personal fortune of £28 million.

It’s part family inheritance, part her 30 per cent stake in Hollywood producers limelight Productions. She’s also a Vogue model. Oh, and lad mag GQ rates her as the seventh sexiest woman in the world.

I guess when your grandad is legendary film-maker Sir Charlie Chaplin, it’s in the genes. For Kiera, 30, is the daughter of Chaplin’s son Eugene and his Irish wife Bernadette. She is also the great-granddaughter of Irish American playwright Eugene O’Neill.

She never knew her grandfather because he died in 1977, five years before she was born — ‘But I saw him as my guardian angel,’ she says. ‘I still do.’

Which is all very made-in-Hollywood until you scratch a little deeper.

Seven years ago, you see, Kiera was… well, let’s just say more infamous than famous, having become engaged to fashion photographer Alexandre de Basseville, who was 12 years her senior.

In 2006, de Basseville was arrested for money laundering through Kiera’s film company limelight. Her young life was, as she now says, ‘ruined’.

‘I have attracted the wrong people,’ she concedes. ‘I think also, with the Chaplin name, people can want to know you for the wrong reasons. When Ali got arrested, I found out practically everything he told me from day one was a lie.

‘I met him when I was 18. He was very rock ’n’ roll, tall and charismatic and exciting. I just thought “Wow”.

‘At first the relationship was great. We went to los Angeles, where he pushed me to start my production company. But after a while I started to see the cracks. He was very possessive and manipulative.’

Didn’t she have a clue what he was up to? She shakes her head. ‘I found out when he got arrested,’ she says. ‘He told me he’d met these guys who wanted to put money into movies. He said he thought they were a bit shady.

‘I remember saying: “Don’t do anything that’s illegal.” He said: “No, don’t worry.” I just left it at that and trusted him.

‘But these men were actually undercover agents. I almost wish I could say: “Yes, I