Eddie the Eagle 'wiped out' by divorce

Ski Jumping - Calgary Winter Olympics
Ski Jumping - Calgary Winter Olympics

Once-famous ski jumper Eddie the Eagle is now living in a shed and surviving on sandwiches, saying divorce has left him broke.

Michael 'Eddie' Edwards shot to fame during the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada. Despite coming last in the ski-jump event, he was widely praised for his courage and determination; and his story even inspired a film that was released earlier this year.

However, in an interview with the Sunday Times, Edwards has now revealed that divorcing his wife of 13 years, Samantha Morton, has cost him around 85% of his assets.

While he signed the rights deal for the film of his life long before the divorce, his wife has been awarded the £180,000 proceeds.

"I was just unlucky. Because we had children, and other factors, I ended up losing 85%," he tells the paper.

"I'm wiped out. I still haven't paid the tax on it. I've had to sell my flat in Bedford to pay my anticipated tax bill. I'll also have to pay capital gains tax from the property sale."

At one stage, Edwards was earning as much as £65,000 a day for promotional work. Despite this, though, he was declared bankrupt in 1992, claiming that a trust fund had been mismanaged. He later bounced back to earn a law degree from De Montfort University in Leicester.

Since the divorce, though, he's been sleeping in a shed and living on sandwiches as he works on renovating his new house in the Cotswolds.

In fact, men usually tend to get the best deal in a split, with research showing that they are generally better off after a divorce, whereas women end up noticeably poorer. Where children are involved, after all, it's generally the mother whose career takes a hit, and very few fathers cover half the cost of bringing their children up.

Meanwhile, over the last year or so, family courts have been less generous in the spousal maintenance awards they approve.

Edwards, though, claims he's not bitter.

"It's just one of those things... You have to be philosophical," he says. "If you think about it too much, you get depressed, so I think, 'I made it once, I made it twice, I can make it three times'."

Eddie the Eagle: Video Review
Eddie the Eagle: Video Review





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