EastEnders legend Martine McCutcheon has been declared bankrupt – just months after the break up of her marriage, MailOnline can reveal.
The 49 year old actress – who also appeared in Love Actually – filed a petition for her insolvency over a debt to a finance company, official public records reveal.
McCutcheon’s financial woes follow soon after the very public split from husband Jack McManus, with whom she shares a ten-year-old son.
The couple, who had married in a lavish event at Lake Como in Italy in 2012, announced their split late last year.
And her bankruptcy was issued just two months after McCutcheon and musician McManus, 42, sold the family home they had shared, a five bedroom detached home in Surrey for £1,355,000, as they went their separate ways.
The bankruptcy order was made in her married name – Martine McManus – despite her being formally single by the then.
It was issued in March at the County Court in Guildford, Surrey following a petition filed by a company called LDF Finance to whom she owed an unspecified sum of money.
But that wasn’t the only financial blow to strike her soon after the marriage split: her company Raven Music Ltd was also wound up just last month at the request of HMRC due to unpaid tax bills, MalOnline has learned.
Martine McCutcheon and Jack McManus got married 2012 but announced their split late last year (Pictured after renewing their vows in 2022)
The couple’s five bedroom 3000sq ft detached home was put on the market on May 31 and the asking price has been slashed by £250,000, from its original listing of £1.5million
The most recent accounts for the company reveal that it owed more than £175,000 to the taxman, payable in the 12month period after February 2022.
McCutcheon’s total personal tax bill has not been revealed, and it is not known if the Official Receiver will apply for a public examination of her bankruptcy which would disclose her financial affairs to the world.
As Martine’s finances were unravelling, the actress continued to put on a brave face in public: that same month that her music company was hitting the buffers, for example, she posted on social media about a day out with her son Rafferty and their dog.
She wrote: ‘I love being by the water… ⛵️���� The Uk has SO many beautiful places and in the sunshine, it really does take some beating doesn’t it? �� This is us on Hampton court river…. We booked a boat, and took a little picnic and it was gorgeous!! ‘
This is actually the second time that the actress – whose net worth was once estimated as being over £2 million – has been declared bankrupt, having previously endured the distressing legal process in 2013.
That earlier bankruptcy came after she reportedly racked up £187,000 of debts,which included £150,000 owed to HMRC.
But McCutcheon is believed to have been discharged from that previous bankruptcy in 2014, allowing her to get back on her feet financially.
She and her husband were certainly solvent enough to be able to splash out £1.3m on buying their dream detached home in Surrey in June 2022.
But the move to a dream home didn’t save the relationship of the couple who revealed last August that they were splitting up last August after 18 years together.
And McCutcheon revealed last year that her husband had ended their relationship.
Sources close to the star indicated she desperately tried to save her marriage but eventually accepted her husband’s decision to move on.
In her split statement, which she posted on Instagram, McCutcheon wrote: ‘After much thought and consideration, Jack has decided it’s best for us to separate after 18 years together and I accept his decision.’
She later added: ‘I continue to send Jack, all the love, luck and happiness for the next chapter of his life.’
It later emerged that they had put their home on the market three months earlier in May last year with an asking price of £1.5m.
The decision to slash the price comes just a week after Martine appeared to take a swipe at her ex in a series of cryptic Instagram posts
They later reduced the price to £1.25m – meaning they faced making a loss on the property – before securing a sale in January this year for £1,355,000, according to Land Registry records.
The actress has now downsized and is believed to live in a rented three bedroom Victorian terraced home in a nearby town in Surrey.
McCutcheon shot to fame in 1995 at the age of 18 when she played Tiffany Mitchell in EastEnders and stayed in the BBC1 show until 1998 when her character was killed off.
She went on to launch a pop career, and had a number one hit in 1999 with her song Perfect Moment.
McCutcheon went on to have a number of TV roles and won a Laurence Olivier Award in 2002 for playing Eliza Doolittle in the National Theatre’s stage production of My Fair Lady.
She also starred with Hugh Grant, Keira Knightley and Colin Firth in the 2003 hit film Love Actually, and went to America in the wake of its success, but a Hollywood career did not materialise.
Her novel The Mistress became a top ten bestseller in 2009 and she went on to be the face of Dantone’s UK advertising campaign for its Activa yogurt.
She was said to be earning just £1.50 an hour in Knicker Box before her EastEnders role which set her on the path to amassing a reported fortune of £1.5million.
McCutcheon has previously admitted she is ‘materialistic’ and has a love for the finer things in life.
She once said: ‘I love nice things – I consider Ralph Lauren sheets to be a necessity, not a luxury – but I’ve known what it’s like to be poor.
‘I’m a Taurean, so I’m very passionate and determined and materialistic. Down the years I’ve spent a lot of money and saved a bit of money and had a lot of fun.
‘And yes, if it all ended tomorrow and I could never afford another Gucci bag, then I think it’s safe to say that I’ve got enough to be going on with.’
A source told MailOnline: ‘Martine’s had an incredibly tough few years, not just in her personal life, but her businesses too.
‘Unfortunately the bankruptcy was unavoidable, but she’s seeing it as a fresh start and will look to bounce back. She’s done it before and she’ll do it again.’
In an interview with BBC4’s Woman’s Hour, she admitted that she turned into a recluse when her marriage first came under strain.
She said: ‘I didn’t want to answer my phone. I didn’t want to answer the front door, go outside and I would panic out of nowhere and have to pull over when I was driving because I felt this huge fear and couldn’t breathe.’
The actress added: ‘I genuinely felt I was losing my mind. I didn’t know if I really was or if it was something that was perimenopausal.
‘It would just come on out of nowhere and when I spoke to my specialist about it she said, ‘You know this is sadly the case for many women.’
McCutcheon’s health was also deeply impacted by the shock death in 2022 of her brother LJ (Lawrence John) who had a mild form of special needs and passed away with ‘no medical explanation’.
The website designer had been due to get married a month before his death and McCutcheon was going to be a bridesmaid.
Following his death, McCutcheon who was already living with ME (chronic fatigue syndrome) admitted she had been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).
Speaking on the A Gentle Star: The Showercast podcast, she admitted she had been in denial about having the condition.
She said: ‘At first I went into I went into denial, completely into denial, because my brother had passed away.
‘I’ve been diagnosed with ME, and I just thought, I can’t take this diagnosis on and whatever it means. I need to just keep going at life the way that I am. And in a way, I was kind of right.
‘And then when I did finally look at it, I cried, I cried, cried and cried, I grieved, and it was just for if only I’d known how different things could have been, how much more with ease I would have been able to have done things.’
Martine revealed in August that her husband Jack had left her after 18 years together – days after she wrote a heartfelt birthday tribute for him
The couple, who married in a romantic ceremony at Italy’s Lake Como in 2012, had been together for five years before tying the knot and share a ten-year-old son
McCutcheon added: ‘I always felt there were certain things that I looked at differently, different things I struggled with compared to other people, but different things I found so easy, and I realised, when I got my ADD diagnosis, that I had spent so much time trying to be a square in a round circle, and it was exhausting.
‘It was so draining. It was just so hard. And in a way, I feel like I wasn’t meant to find out, as sad as it was, because I did lose a lot of things in my life.
‘I did struggle with a lot of things that I don’t think I would have done necessarily. I think that if I’d have known before those four years ago that I had ADD, I don’t know if I would have been able to have coped with it the way that I do now.’
McCutcheon set up her company Raven Music Ltd in February 2017, according to Companies House records.
Its last accounts filed in February 2023 showed it had assets of £272,977 including more than £211,000 in cash in the bank in February 2022.
But at the same time, it had debts falling due for payment in the future for £255,693, including £110,000 in Corporation Tax and £64,790 in other HMRC payments
The company faced a notice for compulsory strike off in February last year, but it was suspended two weeks later before being wound up at the request of the HMRC.
Mailonline has approached McCutcheon’s representatives for comment.
