Everton flop owned pet zebra and was caught red-handed with stripper by spouse’s detective

This Dutch winger was once a hot prospect at Ajax and spent four years under David Moyes at Everton – but he was also known for his bizarre and unbelievable off-field antics

Andy van der Meyde is on a redemption quest, eager to make amends for his time of debauchery and wild antics in the Premier League, which included sex, drugs, and even zebras.

A heartfelt apology graced the pages of the matchday programme before former club Everton’s nail-biting 3-2 victory over Crystal Palace in May 2022 – a triumph that guaranteed they remained in the top flight.

The Dutchman‘s plea for forgiveness was a clear signal he’s chasing a second chance with the Everton faithful, particularly after a sour split with the same boss who’s been hailed as the saviour from this season’s relegation scrap, David Moyes. Here we take a dive into the life of ‘Shandy Andy’, the nickname bestowed upon the ex-pro by the Toffees’ loyal supporters.

Born in Arnhem in 1979, Van der Meyde didn’t kick off his career with the local Vitesse. Instead, he shot to fame at Ajax, where by 22, he was tearing up the right flank, sharing the field with future legends like Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Wesley Sneijder, and Rafael van der Vaart. He also bagged 17 caps for the Netherlands, playing a pivotal part in their journey to the Euro 2004 semi-finals.

He was snapped up by Inter Milan for £4m back in 2003, where he enjoyed a two-year stint, although his latter season saw him benched more than he’d have liked. Sick of warming the bench, Van der Meyde made the leap to Everton in 2005 for £2.1m. Moyes had been eyeing him up for a while, but their budding relationship would soon hit rocky waters.

Van der Meyde faced another pivotal choice before this move, however – set sail for Goodison Park or bask in the sun on the French Riviera? At the time, Monaco were dangling a hefty paycheck and a lush apartment in France. But alas, his then-wife Diana Grifhorst needed ample space for her menagerie of exotic beasts, which boasted 11 horses, a camel, and even zebras, reports the Mirror.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live in 2013, Van der Meyde revealed: “I wanted to sign for Monaco, but my ex-wife likes a lot of animals. I like a dog or something but not what she likes – zebras and all that sort of stuff. If I went there I could have made a lot of money because I wouldn’t have had to pay tax there.

“I phoned my wife and said, ‘Hey, they only have apartments there and you can’t have a zebra in the flat, you’ll have to leave them at home’. That was not her thing and she didn’t want to go there, so we went to rainy Liverpool.”

Despite bagging a £30,000-a-week salary at the age of 25, he initially holed up in a hotel while his wife and their two daughters, Purple and Isabella, stayed back in Italy amidst their menagerie. Arriving on Merseyside with an injury, Van der Meyde had time on his hands. For his friend’s son’s 16th birthday, he introduced the teenager to adult entertainment by taking him to a strip club.

In his no-holds-barred autobiography ‘No Mercy’, he comes clean: “After a couple of hours of alcohol I drove to the nearest strip club. Getting drunk in a strip club in the middle of Liverpool was not very smart. But I had a strong longing for naked women.”

What transpired next was an impassioned affair with a stripper named Lisa – who struck him so deeply, he fell head over heels and couldn’t resist comparing her to glamour model Jordan [Katie Price], admitting: “After I’d had sex with Lisa once I was addicted, she was wild, crazy and horny.”

His spouse, upon settling in Liverpool with their kids, grew wary of his absences from the family abode and resorted to hiring a sleuth to tail him. Van der Meyde was caught out when a tracker was placed on his car, revealing his infidelity. In an interview with the BBC, he confessed: “A private detective had videos and photos of me and my new girlfriend and then my wife rang me and said ‘How’s your new girlfriend?’ I was still denying it then.”

Following the revelation, Diana and their daughters quickly returned to Italy, leaving Van der Meyde in Liverpool with Lisa. The subsequent events had a profound effect on his career at Everton. Van der Meyde and Lisa welcomed a daughter, Dolce, who was born with a severe stomach condition. She spent her early life fighting for survival in Liverpool’s Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, with Van der Meyde often by her side.

According to Van der Meyde, Moyes showed little understanding of his predicament. Recalling a conversation in Ryan Baldi’s book The Next Big Thing, he said: “[Moyes] said to me, ‘Go to London, you can play there.’ I said, ‘I don’t want to go to London. My kid is in hospital. I want to stay here’. He said to me, ‘It’s always something with your kid. Always problems’. From that moment on, I thought, ‘F*** you. You speak like that about my kid? You can do whatever you want with me now.’ It was unbelievable.”

Away from the club, Van der Meyde’s life was spiralling. He once told how he got sick after his drink was reportedly spiked during a wild night out. Things took a darker turn when his dog, Mac, got stolen by thieves who broke into his Wirral pad, taking a Ferrari, a Mini Cooper, and eight Rolex watches. Using his mobile, they phoned up a peer to demand a hefty £5,000 for the safe return of his pet.

In an eye-popping tell-all, the ex-footie pro recounted the chaotic time, expressing: “It’s been an unbelievable couple of weeks. I thought when I went to the game and played on Saturday that everything would get back to normal. Then I came back to this. I wish it would just stop.”

Van der Meyde laid bare his addiction battle in his memoir, owning up to this: “Soon I couldn’t sleep without popping a pill – I was addicted. The pills were pretty heavy, the kind you only get with a doctor’s prescription. So I stole them from the office of the club doctor and no one noticed, for more than two years I stole those pills.”

The pressure even strained his rapport with old team-mates. He sniped at club captain Phil Neville: “He was Moyes’ pet so I picked on him a lot. I think he told everything that was going on to the boss and that’s why he was captain, he was a snitch.”

Surprisingly, he only fell into drugs after his move to Everton. He made it clear: “I never took drugs while I was playing at Everton. That was after I stayed another year living in Liverpool and had no club and I was taking drugs. I was living there alone with a friend and we were just going out and taking drugs.

“On Friday and Saturday we’d go out and do stupid things because you don’t see reality and I was hoping I could get my relationship back with my ex-girlfriend.”

At his wit’s end, he reached out to his agent for redemption, leading to a stint with PSV Eindhoven in 2010. Yet, he didn’t feature in first-team action and briefly retired in 2011 at the tender age of 31. Later, he had a dash in Dutch amateur football with WKE before bidding farewell to the sport in 2012.

More than a decade since his last goal, Van der Meyde’s reinvented himself. In an unexpected twist in 2014, he refereed the Lingerie World Cup and now pilots a YouTube series Bij Andy in de Auto (In Andy’s Car), filming conversations with ex-pros. His series has seen names like Ruud Gullit, Hakim Ziyech and the current Liverpool gaffer Arne Slot riding shotgun.

Van der Meyde is as open-hearted about his personal life as he is about his football career, crediting his current wife Melisa Schaufeli with a life-saving influence, saying “She saved my life” during his darkest moments. Reflecting on his stint with Everton, Van der Meyde didn’t sugarcoat his remorse.

Speaking to Amazon Prime Italy back in November, he admitted: “I f***ed up there. My football career was almost over when I went to England, it all ended because I did a lot of stupid things.

“I cheated on my ex-wife, she didn’t deserve all this, she was a good woman. I gave up my children for someone else. I will never forgive myself for this. Only my fault. I can’t blame anyone else for this.”

On mending fences with Moyes, Van der Meyde’s stance was unequivocal: “For the things I said, I would shake his hand and say, ‘Sorry, man’. People ask why I did this and that. But life for me was a cocktail of problems. Mentally, I needed to put those away and, on that, I failed. I have to live with it.”