Alice Evans‘ lawyers have accused her ex-husband Ioan Gruffudd of giving his fiancée Bianca Wallace $77,000 in just a single month while she was struggling for cash to look after their children.
In bombshell court papers, Evans claims the Fantastic Four actor stopped paying him either child or spousal support in April.
According to a court filing on July 1 seen by MailOnline, she claims she is in a dire financial crisis, behind on rent and utility payments and struggling to put food on the table for their daughters Ella, 14, and Elsie, 10.
Meanwhile, she alleges Gruffudd, 50, and Wallace have been travelling the world and even recently bought new Rolex watches.
A page from the court filing appears to show the $77,000 that Gruffudd is said to have paid out to Wallace in December last year. The biggest single payment is $53,760 – for a ‘loan repayment’.
It seems that there are three of them in the divorce battle, with Evans, 55, saying that Wallace made a ‘completely false’ and highly defamatory attack on her on Instagram in April this year.
In the post, aspiring actress Wallace said she had been contacted by thousands of people who claimed Evans had abused or threatened them – declaring that she was going to ‘stand up’ to ‘bullies’.
Alice Evans pictured with her two daughters – amid her messy divorce from Ioan Gruffudd
Gruffudd is pictured kissing his smiling fiancée Bianca Wallace in an Instagram post announcing their engagement in January
Gruffudd paid Wallace $77,000 in December 2023, Evans says. This image from the court filing appears to show the payments in question
Evans’ lawyers argue this means that Wallace was in breach of a custody stipulation, which forbids either of them from being negative about the others in front of the children.
Because their eldest daughter, Ella, has Instagram, her lawyers say this is a breach.
In the papers, Evans adds that Ella was very upset when a school friend told her about the post and ‘cried out she never wants to see Ioan again.’
The documents say that Evans’ lawyers emailed Gruffudd’s lawyers to ask for Bianca’s Instagram post to be removed, but received no response. They note that Bianca used the pronoun ‘we’ in the post, which implied that her fiancée agreed with her.
It is also the case that Evans, after hundreds of outbursts on social media and elsewhere in the immediate aftermath of their separation in 2021, is subject to a restraining order which means that she was not able to respond at the time.
The filing is an urgent request for funds. In it, Evans, who met Gruffudd on the set of the film 102 Dalmatians, says: ‘As it stands, I have very little money coming in each month. I earn approximately $300 per month in royalties.
‘I have drained all of my personal savings paying my prior attorneys in this case and paying for my expenses
‘I have some personal property, such as vintage designer items, held in storage, that I could possibly sell, but they are in danger of being sold at auction because I cannot pay the monthly storage fee (Ioan stopped paying post-separation even though our daughters’ childhood mementos are stored there.)’
Evans, Ella, Elsie and Gruffudd attending the premiere of Show Dogs in Hollywood in 2018
Wallace, Gruffudd’s fiancée, smiling in this Instagram post
She adds: ‘As it stands, I am behind on rent and utility payments, and friends have started dropping off groceries and food so the children and I can eat. I will be applying for food stamps and welfare.
‘While I am struggling to put food on the table for our children, Ioan is jet setting around the world. Ioan could not appear at his noticed deposition for custody issues because he travelled to the UK. Since April 2024, according to his Instagram page and press releases, he has been in the UK, Cardiff, Sardinia, Rome, Spain, and Seattle.
‘Based upon stories in the media, Ioan purchased an expensive engagement ring for his fiancée and they recently purchased new Rolex watches. ‘
She acknowledges she signed a prenuptial agreement in 2007 before marrying Gruffudd. It gives her 20 per cent of his earnings as spousal support in the event of a split, or 10 per cent if they have children.
She notes: ‘This provision punishes me for having children, which I contend offends the public policy of the State of California that both parents are to contribute to the financial support of the children, especially in this case where I now have 100% custody of the children.’
At the time of the prenup, which is attached to the filing, Gruffudd said he had a net worth of £2million, and she had $40,000 in various accounts.
The couple split up in January 2021, and in September of that year he went public with Wallace, who was an extra on the show Harrow which was filmed in Australia.
It was only at the end of 2023 that some interim spousal and child support was settled. The agreed payment was $3,000 a month in interim child support and $7,000 a month in spousal support. Evans says that Gruffudd only paid the spousal support from December 2023 to April 2024 and has paid nothing since.
Her lawyers say that he earned on average $21,000 a month in 2023, but during the marriage had earned between $500,000 and $1million a year.
They claim that Gruffudd earns tens of thousands of dollars a month, per his tax filings, and that he also received ‘approximately $390,000 from the sales proceeds of the home just in December 2023’.
‘In this case, a disparity in access to funds to pay fees exists because Alice earns only a few hundred dollars per month, while Ioan’s self-reported average monthly income on his Income and Expense Declaration filed January 24, 2024, is $21,023 for the 36 months ending December 31, 2023 and $18,264 for the 12 months ending December 31, 2023,’ the legal filing states.
‘Moreover, Ioan continues to get roles in movies, such as Bad Boys 4, which was just released this year. Ioan also received approximately $390,000 from the sales proceeds of the home just in December 2023.’
Evans is asking the court to pay her attorneys and alleges that he has been paying two different law firms and a forensic accountant.
It was initially understood that the financial issues would go to trial by April 2024 but that has now been put off to August.
‘Alice is applying for public assistance because she is unable to support herself and the children,’ her lawyer states in the latest legal filing.
‘It appears that the financial trial will be several months away and Alice will not be able to survive without the receipt of guideline spousal support.
‘Ioan has the ability to pay spousal support based upon his greater ability to earn income and his ongoing lavish lifestyle. For these reasons, Alice requests guideline child and spousal support.’
The issue of custody has been settled, with both parties signing a stipulation two months ago. Following an evaluation by a child custody expert, which took several months, Evans was granted 100 per cent custody. Gruffudd had wanted a 50-50 arrangement.
Her lawyer Janina Verano also says that since May 2023, Gruffudd has not seen the children outside of reunification therapy nor has he ‘exercised his court ordered right’ to have a telephone call with them three times a week. Reunification therapy ended in February this year.
‘Ioan has not telephoned the children or returned their text messages since May of 2023,’ Evans says. She adds: ‘The children have been left in limbo and are completely confused about when or if they will see Ioan.’
Through an order filed by her lawyer, Evans says that she does not agree to the sealing or keeping private of their stipulation, or custody agreement in its entirety, which is what Gruffudd has requested – accusing him of being ‘disingenuous’ in his request to seal the legal proceedings in order to ‘protect the children’.
Evans’ attorney notes that Gruffudd ‘did not seek to seal any of DVRO [domestic violence] pleadings nor any of the custody pleadings wherein he falsely accuses Alice of abusing the children’ – calling out the fact that he only wishes to seal those proceedings in which the allegations were resolved.
Evans was made subject to a restraining order by her estranged husband in February 2022 after she posted a number of messages about him and his new girlfriend on social media and allegedly sent him over 100 texts. One suggested: ‘You’ve got your nuts stuck in her veneers.’ She denied abusing or harassing him.
The order was extended for three years in August 2022, and Evans was forbidden from posting about either Gruffudd or Wallace.
In June last year, elder daughter Ella, then 13, applied for a restraining order against Gruffudd after a custody visit ended in chaos. She said: ‘I was so mad at my dad because this was an overnight visit, and I had told him in the past that I didn’t want to meet his girlfriend who was now his live-in girlfriend.’
She claimed that Wallace had slammed a door against her head as she was running from their apartment after pouring milk and mustard around in protest.
In publicly available documents she said that she was ‘afraid’ of her father and said that he had threatened to ‘call the police on her anytime she misbehaves’ during visits.
The request for a restraining order was dropped in court by Ella, who faced her father’s legal team.
The couple married in Mexico in 2007 after meeting on the set of the Disney film 102 Dalmatians.
Gruffudd’s representatives were contacted for comment.