Toxic Hollywood Divorce Gets Even Nastier

A YouTuber described by as a ‘stalker’ is forcing the actress and her ex-husband back to court next week.

In an extraordinary development in Hollywood’s most toxic divorce, Andrea Burkhart, an attorney who now works as a ‘self-employed legal commentator’, has filed an application for access to a trove of communications and financial information.

Many of the communications date back to 2021, directly after Gruffudd left Evans, and were used in a successful bid for a restraining order against her. The emails and texts, between Evans and a former friend, are highly critical of Gruffudd.

All of the information was submitted to the court during the divorce trial in March, but only a fraction of it was examined during the public hearing, according to Ms Burkhart.

She wants the chance to copy and disseminate the material, and says her audience – she has 130,000 subscribers on – is ‘deeply interested’ in the proceedings. (Videos she made about the couple have attracted more than 400,000 views.)

The twist is that Burkhart’s application is backed by

Gruffudd, who says in legal papers that the public have a ‘right to know’ about Evans’ ‘abusive behaviours’.

If they did, he believes it could mitigate the damage caused to his reputation.

His lawyers say he has ‘no objections’ to the exhibits in question being made available to Burkhart.

They reiterated Gruffudd’s belief that his own privacy interests had already been ‘utterly trampled’ by Evans’ previous social media postings, which they called ‘tortuous’ and ‘unextinguishable’.

Evans’ legal team are objecting to the move, saying it is likely to cause distress to children Ella, 16, and Elsie, 12, pointing out that the evidence includes private medical information about the girls.

Conceding that there could be ‘limited and targeted redactions’ when it comes to the children, Burkhart appears otherwise unmoved by that argument. She writes in her application:

‘If the consequences of Respondent’s conduct are distressing to her children, that should motivate her to make different choices.’

Burkhart started out making videos championing Johnny Depp during the defamation hearing against his ex-wife Amber Heard, which he won. She referred to the actor as a ‘hero’. She has posted dozens of videos about the Evans-Gruffudd divorce, referring to Evans as ‘Malice’.

‘Alice just lies about her financial situation,’ Burkhart wrote in an August 2024 post.

Last September, Evans was briefly thrown out of court after taking a picture of Burkhart.

Evans explained she had been stunned to see the commentator, whose insights are popular on the website Tattle Life, attending proceedings – and sitting near her ex-husband.

She wrote on Instagram: ‘I wasn’t taking a picture of Ioan. I was trying to get a picture of the stalker!’

The hearing over Burkhart’s application is due before judge Michael J. Convey in the LA Superior Court on Thursday.

Gruffudd left Evans, his wife of 14 years, in 2021 and is now married to Australian actress Bianca Wallace. They had a baby daughter Mila last year.

Strimming gives Jen her zen

Jennifer Saunders has fully embraced the joys of middle age. Speaking on her Titting About podcast with Dawn French, 67-year-old Saunders, pictured, sighed: ‘I have got a really good metal detector which I begged Ade to get me for Christmas, but I’ve used it so little. It’s a bit like my other lovely present, the lovely electric strimmer, which I just do the edges of the grass with.

‘A bit of strimming, and a bit of metal detecting, and a bit of sweeping – that to me is joy.

‘That’s my kind of idea of mindfulness.’

How work turned to love for Paralympic presenters

TV presenter and Invictus Games medallist J.J. Chalmers has found love with a disability advocate after they both took part in Channel 4’s Celebrity Hunted.

Chalmers, 39, a former Royal Marine who was injured in a bomb blast in Afghanistan in 2011, said in March this year that he had quietly separated from wife Kornelia, who had nursed him back to health. They have two young children.

He is now happily romancing Sophie Morgan, with the two of them sharing posts of them enjoying life together, on Instagram.

Ms Morgan has been paralysed from the waist down since being in a car crash when she was 18, and was the first wheelchair contestant on the Channel 4 show.

The pair have known each other for ten years, through their involvement in Channel 4’s Paralympic Games coverage.

In 2020, Chalmers reached the quarter finals of Strictly Come Dancing and was supported throughout by Kornelia. He also had a video message from Prince Harry, who is a close friend.

Ms Morgan, 41, has been campaigning about airline treatment of disabled travellers. She has been on the Loose Women panel a number of times and was the lead presenter for the Summer Paralympics in Tokyo in 2021.

It takes a lot to make Gary this slobby

Introducing Jackson Lamb, fashion icon. Apple TV have released pictures of Gary Oldman as the slobbish spy chief ahead of the start of season six of Slow Horses on September 16.

And isn’t it hard to spot any difference over the years?

It may look to the untrained eye that Lamb has worn the same striped shirt (buttons straining); the same stained tie, and the same unsavoury overcoat throughout. But, costume designer Guy Speranza has news for you.

Speranza says he actually makes Lamb a new suit every season.

‘It’s all made to measure – everything! The suits, shirts, and his blue suede shoes. We even alter the ties,’ he adds.

What Speranza does is make everything a bit tight; and then subject the clothes to an ageing and dirtying process, which involves burning and layering with Vaseline. Make-up artist Lucy Sibbick scrunches Oldman’s hair, then adds masses of product including American Crew Forming Cream, Moroccanoil Root Boost, and Murdock London Seasalt Spray.

‘Everyone always says, “Oh, he looks like he smells dreadful!” But I always tell them he actually smells lovely, because the product smells so nice,’ Sibbick confided.

Farrell socks it to his fear of flying

Colin Farrell plays private investigator John Sugar in the neo-noir Sugar. Those who enjoyed series one will remember that he is an alien, who also has some nifty rapid learning skills.

Speaking ahead of the release of the second season on Apple TV today Farrell said: ‘Something I would rapidly like to learn is how to stop being afraid of f***ing flying.’

Farrell, pictured, said he experienced ‘a very rapid, nervous, anxious response when we hit turbulence – especially if we’re over the water’. He added that he’d tried every prescription going, but nothing works.

Instead, he takes books with him – poetry by WB Yeats, that he can ‘dip into’ – and ‘a couple of little tchotchkes’.

‘It could be anything,’ he explained. ‘It could be a toy car from your kid, when your kid was a child; or a sock.

‘Or it could be, you know, a piece of marble from your place of birth.’

This all seems strangely specific, but don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.

Ayo: The Bear put me off omelettes for life! 

The cast of The Bear say they’ve had the time of their lives making the hit show about a chef and his struggles after taking on the family restaurant in Chicago.

But Ayo Edebiri who plays Syd – brought in to the kitchen by Jeremy Allen White’s Carmen Berzatto – is nursing a secret trauma. ‘We made so many omelettes,’ she says.

‘Like – I don’t, I can’t... I still couldn’t eat one. I ate probably 100 omelettes, in the process of trying to make one correctly and perfectly.’

The fifth and final season of the show will be on Disney+ from June 26. 

Russell Crowe has branded Gladiator II a ‘failed’ film, claiming maker Ridley Scott had spoiled it all by implying some kind of romance between his avenging character Maximus and Caesar’s daughter Lucilla (Connie Nielsen). 

Speaking at the Taormina Film Festival he said: ‘They failed, because they didn’t understand why it was successful – because it had a moral core.’

Some critics also felt Paul Mescal was Paul Miscast as Crowe’s son. The sequel took $462 million worldwide – and cost at least $250 million, plus another $150 million in global marketing.