Ioan Gruffudd/Alice Evans

[Notatallanamechange]

Don’t know if anyone has followed this, but she had an arrest warrant issued today for failing to appear in court for breaching a restraining order he has for domestic abuse. Their poor children seem like an afterthought.

As I understand it, the restraining order means she is no longer entitled to spousal support. There is also the prenup. I'm not sure he needs to deliberately reduce his earnings to zero in those circumstances.

I don't necessarily disagree that beggars can't be choosers when it comes to work but there is around a million dollars of equity in the house yet to be distributed. IG did pay all costs associated with the family home (as well as his own costs) for 2 years after they separated.

I can understand in the circumstances why he's not rushing to get a minimum wage job at McDonalds.

I have no idea about prenups in California but I imagine there would be grounds for challenging it.

Also there would be child maintenance. If he's rich and the children have had Nannies and been in private school, then surely the court would set a child maintenance amount that reflects that?

It wont reflect the amount of money he has had in the past, no, as that’s no longer relevant. It’s clear he has very little now, so he wouldn’t be able to pay it. It may be set as a percentage of his future earnings, however.

Taking a minimum wage job would be entirely pointless. It wouldn’t cover a fraction of the expenses involved in paying the mortgage on the house etc, and would mean he had no time to find the far more lucrative acting work. And as you say, there are millions tied up in the house. If they had sold last year when they had it all set up, before Alice withdrew at the last minute, they would all be in a far better situation now. In the meantime the value of the house has dropped.

This is what is so annoying; you have no knowledge of it but an opinion. That doesn’t make something true, or possible.

well here you go: none of these apply because Alice has had many lawyers and not one of them has challenged it.

1. Execution Under Duress, Manipulation or Fraud

In order to be legally enforceable, a prenuptial agreement must be entered into voluntarily by both parties. If either party signed the agreement against his or her will due to duress, manipulation or fraud, then the entire agreement may be invalid.

1. Unconscionability

A prenuptial agreement can also be invalid if it is determined to be “unconscionable.” In order to be considered unconscionable, a prenuptial agreement must be overtly one-sided, and the spouse seeking to challenge the agreement must have not:

Received full disclosure of his or her fiancé’s assets and liabilities prior to signing the agreement;

Waived his or her right to receive a full and accurate asset and liability disclosure; and,

Had a reasonable opportunity to discover his or her fiancé’s assets and liabilities prior to signing.

1. Lack of Mental Capacity

A prenuptial agreement is not enforceable if, at the time of signing, one party lacked the mental capacity required to make an informed and conscious decision. In addition to mental illnesses and other health conditions, alcohol and drug intoxication can establish lack of capacity in some cases.

1. Lack of Legal Representation

By law, when signing a prenuptial agreement in California, both parties must have their attorneys present, or they must have previously waived their right to legal representation in a separate document. If either party was denied the opportunity to have legal representation, this can render their prenuptial agreement unenforceable.

1. Illegal Terms

California law also prohibits prenuptial agreements from containing certain terms. For example, waivers of child support and child custody rights generally will not be enforced. Likewise, contract terms that are viewed as “promoting” divorce may be deemed unenforceable as well.

For those people who have read the legal docs, Ioan is asking for:

1. peace/truce. So that he can find work and pay child support and his bills and not fight with his children or Alice
2. access to his own kids and both parents to contribute towards their well-being and take them to therapy
3. A financial separation for them both by selling their house
4. to no longer be married

he has not asked Alice for anything else, neither has he made any demands of her, unreasonable or otherwise. He hasn’t sent her any bills, he has paid all the bills, but he cannot pay them continually. He is trying not to foreclose on the house so that Alice will have money to rent/buy a house instead of being evicted and leaving with nothing

How can people see court evidence like this and still feel 'poor Alice'?!
Look at what she is doing to her child!

But yes.. he's the wrong one because he's not getting the job people think he should so Alice doesn't have to work?

This is exactly why Alice is in a fucking mess, people who think the law ‘must be wrong’ have been giving her stupid uninformed advice on twitter, Insta and in DM comments. You are actually harming her. Stop giving her crap advice. She can’t challenge the prenup and she willingly signed it. It’s not the U.K. and will never be in the U.K. Ioan has committed no crimes and broken no laws and isn’t taking advantage of her. He wants to give her money from the house and isn’t trying to NOT give her money but he’s stuck

'Why did he hire Brad pitt's divorce attorney to fight over ... no assets or income. If youre actually broke then why hire an expensive lawyer? To fight over your percentage of nothing? Custody isn't that complex and lawyers who work for everyday people are equally adept at it. you don't need the most expensive lawyer for that. The expensive lawyers are the ones with experience fighting over large asset pools- that's why they make the big dollars.

Again, wildly speculative but I think Brad Pitts lawyer would have told him it's a good time to lie low professionally- look like his income is limited and therefore it's unreasonable for her to stake a claim on it, get a clean break of the house and then he's off the hook for supporting her.'

I guess he needs a good lawyer - who is having to deal with child alienation, online abuse, refusal to sell property etc etc. As for him lying low professionally - actors can't really do that. If they're not working for long periods the audience forget about them and consequently they find it hard to get work.

Alice didn't need to be a SAHM for years and years - she's had full time staff, children in private schools. She could have continued to work (at something/anything) but appears to have chosen not to.

As for Ioan dumping his menopausal wife for a younger model, well, that younger model has been diagnosed with a serious, progressive, life limiting disease, so I don't think their relationship is going to be a bed of roses. Bianca appears to have been diagnosed in 2018, so both she and Ioan went into their relationship knowing what the future held - I'd say that's quite brave on both their parts.

Lol sorry @Habber I didn't realise I needed to be admitted to the Californian bar in order to have an opinion on celebrity gossip.

If you're finding yourself getting annoyed and worked up, maybe leave the thread for a bit?

There's nothing wrong with discussion about it. Stop trying to censor people we aren't on the tattle AE thread. Maybe it will help others not to sign a crappy prenup if they live out there , then not work putting themselves at financial risk.

That’s heartbreaking. Poor kids.

people making up their own versions of legal processes are exactly why it’s important to challenge this behaviour - someone who has a prenup is always advised to get their own legal advice, by a lawyer. I don’t think they will take legal advice from a load of middle aged mums on Mumsnet. Protecting your premarital assets or choosing not to work for 15 years is optional: you should be promoting to women to never not work and rely on a man

I've never thought Alice was a good person she's nasty and selfish. She has caused so much trauma to the kids. Ioan is more stable but instead of focusing on them he's been focusing on Bianca. As evidenced by his text messages .You absolutely can move on but there's a time and a place when your children are settled and not in the middle of a toxic divorce. The children are subject to Alices poison 24/7 he could have done more to help them. The only people I feel sorry for are the children who have had no choice in how this plays out.

I haven't read the court papers, and I'm not saying I disbelieve him, but I can't say that either of them have put the children first with some of their behaviour.

I still can't understand why someone escaping domestic abuse, emotional and physical, would leave the children in that environment. The new relationship appears to have instead taken priority.

Protecting your premarital assets or choosing not to work for 15 years is optional: you should be promoting to women to never not work and rely on a man

Absolutely!

Again trying to censor. I've always worked never relied on a man. It's important to be aware of these issues and people are free to discuss. I'm not sure why Alice's lawyer thought that was a fair prenup to sign, who knows but she should have worked instead of thinking Ioan had a duty to support her forever. It's an important lesson

I wonder what Alice thinks her "one mistake" is?

Absolutely! What would be the point of a pre nup if at the point of divorce one of the parties says "nooooo I don't want to abide by that now"?

I still can't understand why someone escaping domestic abuse, emotional and physical, would leave the children in that environment. The new relationship appears to have instead taken priority

I can't either. A lot of posters on here are talking about swapping sexes in the domestic abuse situation and how a woman would get lots of sympathy, but imagine if a woman left her children behind with her abuser to swan around the world with her new side piece...I'm almost certain we wouldn't be seeing all the support that Ioan is currently receiving.

And again, to make it clear; I don't like Alice and I think he was right to leave. If he says he was the victim of abuse, I believe him. However, you can think Alice is off her nut and judge Ioan for being a crap parent. The two things can be true at the same time.

I also don't like either of them. I agree, people who leave domestic abuse situations often do it to protect the children in the first instance. I've rarely heard of the children actually being left behind. Even the threads here on Mumsnet bear that out.

He wasn’t in a position to just take the children though, was he? Especially not ones at an age where they could straight up refuse to go. Instead he’s letting it go through the courts, which is absolutely the smartest way to go about it.

I don't understand how he just sat on the bed in the situation captured in the screen grabs upthread and let her run off at the mouth like that. He should have removed himself and his daughter from the room, at the very least. And if she came after them, take the kids and go to a hotel and leave her in the home until she had (presumably) sobered up.

I can see why it might not have been easy for him from a practical point of view, travel, job, new relationship.

However, If they were at risk of abuse he could have taken them. Not very smart to leave them in a domestic abuse setting without him for what must be around two years, and counting, now.