‘Anything you can spare will help’: Ioan’s ex in £20,000 web fundraiser to pay for a divorce lawyer
ACTRESS Alice Evans is begging for cash online after claiming that her US divorce battle with Ioan Gruffudd has left her broke.
Miss Evans, 53, said she had sacked her lawyers because she cannot afford any more legal fees.
The star of 102 Dalmatians has set up a GoFundMe page to raise $25,000 (£20,500) and is asking friends for money as her divorce fight enters its 15th month.
Miss Evans announced in January 2021 that Gruffudd, 48 – who found fame in the TV series Hornblower – was walking out because he no longer loved her.
It emerged that he had set up home in California with actress Bianca Wallace, 30 – an extra on the Australian crime drama Harrow in which he played the lead.
Papers filed in court in Los Angeles last
‘Yesterday all my accounts ran out’
week state she is representing herself in the divorce, having dispensed with the services of lawyer Leon Bennett. Gruffudd has hired Anne Kiley, who also represents Brad Pitt.
During their acrimonious separation, Miss Evans made headlines for posting critical messages about Gruffudd online. But at the weekend, she put a letter from Kiley’s firm on Instagram reminding her she was subject to a restraining order – and warning that it may be a criminal offence for her to post on social media about her husband.
She has also explained her situation in an email to friends seeking money, writing: ‘I never in a million years thought I would be doing this. Until recently everything appeared to be going well in my life. I had a wonderful husband and two brilliant kids who had cost us the earth in IVF but were so worth it! However in August 2020, just as the pandemic was really kicking in, my entire world fell apart.’
She said legal fees ‘have finally drained everything – savings, accounts, pension, the lot’, adding: ‘Yesterday all my accounts ran out and I couldn’t buy anything.’
The letter ends: ‘I’m asking for help – something I’ve never done... and never expected to do. I have no parents or extended family to borrow from. Just me, my brother and his wife in the UK. Yes, it’s embarrassing. Anything you can spare will help.’
In texts and emails filed in court by Gruffudd, she branded Miss Wallace a ‘psychopath’, ‘succubus’ and ‘bitch’. He was given a restraining order in February, preventing her contacting or harassing him or his girlfriend. Last week it was extended.
He and Miss Evans were together for 20 years and married for 13. But her friends fear she will now lose the house in Los Angeles she shares with their young daughters.
She has asked the court to decide what will happen to it, having claimed in March that she would become ‘homeless’. Sources close to the case say Gruffudd wants to sell it because he has no savings left.
He lives with Miss Wallace in Los Angeles, where they are working on a documentary about her battle with multiple sclerosis.