Ioan Gruffudd was the very picture of paternal joy and delight this week, as he climbed the steps of the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in Los Angeles, his new wife Bianca Gruffudd, nee Wallace – pregnant stomach proudly on display – at his side.
True, he wasn’t exactly fizzing with joy, as he had been two days earlier, at the premiere of the Fantastic Four film – again with Bianca – where the two kissed for the cameras, he protectively cradling her bump.
Yet there were plenty of smiles in court. The couple were even heard laughing with his legal team, as they prepared to face his ex-wife, Alice Evans.
Not so Alice, meanwhile. She arrived alone and unsmiling, dressed from head to toe in black.
Asked, how she was feeling, she answered: ‘About how you would expect,’ before hurrying inside.
It’s not the first time the former couple have faced each other before a judge since their acrimonious split four years ago.
There were some hopes, however, that this week’s hearing might finally resolve their ongoing financial wrangle, which, according to Alice, has left her and their two daughters, Ella, 15, and Elsie, 11, effectively destitute and homeless – a point her former husband strongly disputes.
Ioan, 51, meanwhile is also seeking to make permanent a restraining order, put in place against Alice in 2022 following a deluge of abusive texts and social media posts, meaning they will never see or contact each other ever again.
Ioan Gruffudd cradles Bianca Gruffudd’s baby bump earlier this week
The couple arrive at court regarding a child support case with his ex-wife, Alice Evans
Alice showed up to court alone and unsmiling
Once settled, the case will hopefully see a much-needed ceasefire in one of the nastiest divorce battles in recent times.
But, as sources point out, the fallout – especially for the two girls – will never be over.
As one said: ‘If the order is granted there will never be a chance for the girls to heal or for there to be a blended family with the new baby. It is extremely sad. It hurts everyone, including the children.’
It will mean that Ioan and Alice will never be able to attend a graduation ceremony, wedding, baptism or – God forbid – an emergency room, together with their daughters.
So who is the winner here?
It’s been four-and-a-half years since the once-golden couple, who met on the set of the film 102 Dalmatians, split up, and two years since they were legally divorced.
The marital home has been sold. Alice, 56, has full custody of the children and the three of them are living in distinctly more modest circumstances in the suburb of Encino in the San Fernando Valley.
Ioan and Bianca, 32, met in 2021 when he was still married to Alice and she was an extra on his TV crime drama Harrow, which was filmed in her native Australia.
Now living in Los Angeles, they married in April and their baby is due early next year.
No one knows what Ella and Elsie think about the impending arrival of a new half sister or brother: their estrangement from their father is complete. They never see him, and haven’t for some time.
Meanwhile, all sides are pleading poverty, with Alice saying that it is simply not possible to make ends meet on the existing payments from Ioan, which comprises $3,000 per month in child support and $1,500 a month in spousal support.
In a written statement to court, backed by documentation, she says she owes money to utility companies, and defaulted on the $6,500-a-month rent at their previous apartment in Beverly Hills, which led to her eviction. She also owes $35,000 to her lawyer.
He is seeking to reduce the payments and says that it isn’t possible to find more or better-paid work.
The irony of the legal fight is that it is costing them both money which they say that they don’t have.
A full five-day trial will cost at least $50,000 in legal fees. This week’s court outing will have cost a further $5,000 to $10,000.
Ioan has also contended in legal papers that he wants to make the three-year restraining order, which he was granted in August 2022, last a lifetime. It says that Alice must stay away from him and Bianca, and bans her from speaking about them, including in interviews or on social media.
It was granted after Alice sent hundreds of abusive text messages and emails. One observed: ‘Some vixen has your nuts between her veneers.’
In a legal filing last year Alice wrote of her regrets at the behaviour, and said that she had not contacted him in years.
She wrote: ‘I understand why the court issued the DVRO (restraining order), and I wish I had never sent the messages or published the social media posts.
‘I was acting out of emotional anguish caused by the unexpected end of our marriage and Ioan’s rather quick public announcement of a new romantic relationship on social media, which our eldest daughter discovered via an Instagram post.’
But when asked how many times he believed the order has been breached by his ex since it was filed Ioan indicated: ‘Approximately 5,000 times.’
That would amount to an average of 138 times a month, or four times a day. Alice denies that this is the case.
Both sides say that they can prove that they are telling the truth. Ioan believes that his ex-wife has been harassing him mostly through anonymous Twitter accounts but also claims she has physically stalked him.
She hit back: ‘There is absolutely no evidence of stalking… I have no idea where he and his wife live, nor do I have any interest in stalking them. This is plainly ridiculous.’
She also denies Ioan’s contention that she has made herself homeless in June in order to make him look bad, which she says is simply absurd.
Earlier this month documents filed by Ioan laid out a series of devastating text messages sent to him by his daughters as they faced eviction.
In a text Ella tells him: ‘Mummy works very hard and also looks after us 24/7. You left us and now you can’t provide for us.
‘You need to get a job daddy. Looking after your girlfriend is not a job. You are a father who has abandoned his children and doesn’t see them or talk to them. You don’t even send Christmas presents. It’s pathetic and everyone sees you.
‘Ps if there is enough money for us never to become homeless then why aren’t you helping us out? You hate mummy more than you love us.’
She also begged him to lend them the funds to allow them to put down a deposit on a new place to live.
She writes: ‘Hi dad we could really use some help with getting a place to live. We have found many we love under $4,000 but we don’t have the credit score or enough to put down as security. Please can you think about helping us?’
Ioan doesn’t include his responses to the girls in the documents.
In other texts, her younger sister Elsie becomes angry with her father, chiding him for ‘trashing’ Alice in other, unseen messages.
Alice and Ioan met on the set of the film 102 Dalmatians in 2000 and got married in 2007
The couple had two daughters together, Ella, now 15, and Elsie, now 11
She writes: ‘If you think me and Ella will ever come and live with you and Bianca you are ****ing crazy and everything you say about Mummy makes us both sick. She is the nicest kindest most beautiful person in the world and you just want to break her and us. I am disappointed in you.’
She also says: ‘How will you feel when you remember what you did to your children and their mum. All my friends are worried for us and trying to help us but not you.’
Ioan says that the texts ‘prove’ that Alice is trying to manipulate him; she says that they do nothing of the sort and that it is ‘absurd’ to suggest that her claims of financial distress are anything other than genuine.
She also insists the texts were written and sent by his children without her involvement.
Adding fuel to the fire are the actions of a keyboard army. Existing mostly on Tattle Life, the notorious website known as a troll’s paradise, there appear to be hundreds of people who have sent thousands of messages about the divorce, with over 300,000 posts about Alice Evans, all of them negative.
Many of them amplify the narrative which suggests that Alice has been ‘abusing’ Ioan.
And at this point, enter law blogger and defence attorney Andrea Burkhart, who is much quoted and loved by the Tattle Life site. One Tattler this week calls her ‘our legal correspondent’.
Ms Burkhart said on X that she flew to Los Angeles from her home in Washington state to attend court this week and take notes on the Alice-Ioan divorce.
She routinely disparages Alice as ‘Malice’ and says that her financial distress is phoney. ‘Alice just lies about her financial situation,’ wrote Burkhart in 2024.
Why she is so invested in this case is anyone’s guess – presumably her YouTube channel about various legal tussles makes money and this is one of a number of cases she follows.
In October last year, Ms Burkhart turned up at a court hearing, and Alice apparently saw Burkhart in the court room, talking and laughing with Ioan.
Incensed and alarmed, she used her mobile phone to take a picture of Burkhart, and was temporarily booted from the court.
Meanwhile, as a side-effect of the restraining order, Alice isn’t able to talk about the divorce or her husband on social media, or elsewhere.
The irony – that trolls are getting rich on her financial and emotional misery while she is gagged from speaking – is a cruel one. Meanwhile the months roll on, the lawyers’ bills get ever larger and the children grow up, estranged from their father.
There was a ghastly incident in 2023 during a custody visit when Ella, now 15, first met her father’s new girlfriend.
She said that she hadn’t wanted to meet Bianca, and Ioan said in court documents that Ella had reacted furiously to Bianca’s presence and vandalised the apartment.
The teen applied for a restraining order against her father which was not granted.
Alice appeared to have indicated that she wants to move on and attain a state of peace with Ioan and Bianca. After they announced her pregnancy in May it was reported that she was ‘fuming’, but Alice quickly said this was not the case.
Writing on Instagram, she said: ‘I am not fuming. Why on earth would I be? As for those who sent me nasty messages or made nasty comments online please remember that a baby announcement is a beautiful thing that brings much happiness and you’re sullying it with your hate. Shame on you. The baby deserves better.’
Is peace in finally in sight? Sadly, at the hearing on Wednesday, the case was pushed back yet again, and is due for a full five-day hearing, probably towards the end of this year.
The guns may have quietened, but the war goes on.
