[Alpha_Romeo]

Saw this today. Another casualty of the Marriage-Divorce industry. Perhaps there's some lessons to be learned when it comes to financially managing windfalls. What advice would you give a friend like Eddie (besides the obvious "don't get married"?

Quote:

Eddie the Eagle living in a shed and surviving on egg sandwiches after being 'wiped out' by divorce

Eddie the Eagle, the skijump underdog who won global support when he came last in the 1988 Winter Olympics, is living in a garden shed surviving on egg sandwiches after being “wiped out” by his wife.

Michael “Eddie” Edwards revealed the divorce from his wife, Samantha Morton, has taken about 85% of his wealth, including the £180,000 he earned for the film starring Hugh Jackman .

“I moved into the shed in my garden while developing my new house. I’ve lived off sandwiches ever since, as I don’t have a kitchen,” he said.

“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.’”

Despite becoming an unlikely global celebrity in 1988, Eddie was declared bankrupt in 1992, claiming the trust fund into which he had put his earnings had not been properly managed.

He later earned a law degree from De Montfort University in Leicester.

This year the biopic of his life, starring Taron Egerton, Hugh Jackman and Christopher Walken and based on a memoir Edwards wrote in 1988, earned the former Olympian a six-figure pay cheque.

Edwards told the Sunday Times: “I had to give all that to my ex-wife. I still haven’t paid the tax on it. I’ve had to sell my flat in Bedford, which I bought about 30 years ago, to pay my anticipated tax bill.”

He will also have to pay capital gains on the £175,000 property.

“At least 90% of the money in my account is earmarked for tax,” he said.

Edwards, 52, was married to Morton for more than 10 years, before the divorce was finalised this year. They have two young daughters.

Robbie Williams almost played Eddie The Eagle Edwards as biopic nearly had Take That reunion

“My barrister argued that I signed the film rights 17 years ago and only met my wife about 10 years ago. But they said no. If they had tried to make the film this year, I’d have been fine - the divorce would have been sorted. Because we had children, and other factors, I ended up losing 85%. I’m wiped out.”

In between sponsorship and speaking engagements he has gone back to working as a plasterer - his original trade.

http://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/world/eddi...hp#image=3