Ioan Gruffudd’s annual earnings have dramatically decreased from $585,000 to $125,000, reportedly due to his ex-wife Alice Evans’ alleged “malicious and slanderous” actions, as revealed by the actor’s attorney in a Los Angeles court on Wednesday.
According to attorney Joseph Langlois, Evans, 57, has been on a mission to “destroy” her former husband’s acting career through what he describes as a “five-year campaign of false narratives.”
Langlois stated that Evans’ efforts have been successful, leaving Gruffudd and his new wife, Bianca Wallace, both “emotionally and economically devastated” due to Evans’ continuous breaches of a restraining order. This order was intended to prevent her from making false and disparaging remarks about the couple on social media.
During a contentious trial, Langlois presented his closing arguments, urging Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Convey to terminate the spousal support Gruffudd is obligated to pay Evans. He argues this on grounds of her alleged abuse and because Gruffudd claims he has “overpaid her by almost $400,000.”
Conversely, Evans is requesting that the judge mandate an increase in the $1,500 monthly spousal support she currently receives. Gruffudd is already providing $3,570 monthly in child support for their two daughters, Ella, now 16, and Elsie, 12.
Back in March, during the initial phase of the trial, Judge Convey issued a five-year restraining order against Evans, following her persistent negative posts online about Gruffudd and his second wife, 33-year-old Australian actress Bianca Wallace.
On Wednesday, Langlois told the court that in the three years before Gruffudd and Evans split in early 2021, he was earning an average of $585,000 a year ‘as an A-list actor in high demand.’
But in the four years since their breakup ‘his income dropped to an average of $125,000 a year….He is struggling every single month. He had to borrow money to pay for daily necessities.’
Gruffudd is seen here arriving at Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday
Evans, seen here smiling as she arrived at courrt, is asking the judge to force Gruffudd to increase the $1,500 he’s paying her monthly in spousal support. He’s already paying an agreed $3,570 a month in child support for their two daughters
In March Judge Convey slapped Evans with a five-year restraining order over her barrage of negative online posts about Gruffudd, and his second wife Bianca Wallace
Langlois said the drop in Gruffudd’s fortunes was a result of damage to his reputation caused by Evans ‘20,000[ social media posts’ over five years, about he and Wallace, many of them ‘horrendously negative,’ some of them falsely accusing him of being a ‘deadbeat dad, a child abuser, a pedophile.’
Her barrage of abusive social media posts ‘were calculated to damage, if not destroy, his public image and his career as an actor,’ he added.
Langlois argued that Gruffudd’s spousal support payments to Evans should be terminated because, if he continued pay his abuser, that would a victim financing his own abuse.’
Talking of the ’emotional scars’ Evans’ abuse has left, Langlois said that Gruffudd has spent many years, starting as a child actor, building a respected track record in his profession.
‘Once that reputation is ruined, it’s practically impossible to recover,’ said the attorney. ‘Justice demands the termination of spousal support.’
He told the court that Evans would spend four hours a day on social media, ‘claiming she was a victim when she was the perpetrator of abuse. She was feeding the monster of abuse that she created.
‘There were threats of violence against Ioan and Bianca from the followers who drank Alice’s concoction of abuse.’
Langlois said that while Evans had ‘shed a few tears’ of regret over her campaign of abuse against Gruffudd and Wallace, ‘There has been no real remorse.’
Evans and Gruffudd are pictured here with their two daughters Ella and Elsie in 2018
Gruffudd with new wife Bianca Wallace, whom he met while filming the TV series Harrow in Australia while he was still married
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Citing provisions in the former couple’s original pre-marital agreement, Langlois maintained that Gruffudd ‘overpaid’ Evans to the tune of $359,000 in the three years after their split.
‘Alice lived rent-free in their former home and he paid all her expenses for two years.’
The lawyer told the court that Evans was making no effort’ to contribute to her own support by not looking for acting work or jobs in other fields, ‘even though she’s multi-talented and fluent in three or four languages.’
And he accused her of filing inaccurate and ‘materially lacking’ statements of her income and expenses to the court.
Gruffudd left his wife of 14 years in 2021 and is now married to aspiring actress Bianca Wallace, whom he met while filming the TV series Harrow in Australia while he was still married.
The couple welcomed their baby daughter in November of last year.
