Rock star Liam Gallagher and his ex-wife Nicole Appleton spent more than £800,000 on lawyers while arguing over how to divide assets worth about £11 million following their divorce, a judge has said.
Judge Martin O'Dwyer ruled that the assets should be split in half, with Gallagher and Appleton each receiving about £5.4 million. But the judge raised serious concerns about the amount of money the couple had spent on legal costs during the dispute.
The level of costs in this case, totalling over £800,000, are manifestly excessive for the determination of the dispute, which involves capital sums not much greater at the end of the day than £10 million, the judge said.
Details of the case emerged in a ruling delivered at the Central Family Court in London, after an earlier private hearing at which limits had been placed on what could be reported. Judge O'Dwyer subsequently ruled that much of his judgment could be made public.
Gallagher, the former frontman of Oasis, and Appleton, a singer with the group All Saints, had started living together about 15 years earlier. They married in 2008, separated in 2013 and have a son together. The judge noted that they had lived a very good lifestyle during their time together.
Gallagher, 43 at the time of the ruling, had been the swaggering frontman of Oasis, one of the defining bands of the Britpop era, while Appleton, 41, found fame with the girl group All Saints. Their relationship had been tabloid fodder for years before the marriage ended, and the financial proceedings that followed attracted intense media interest. The earlier hearing at the Central Family Court had been held in private, with strict limits on what could be reported, making the judge's decision to allow publication of much of his ruling a significant moment for press coverage of celebrity divorces.
Neither Gallagher nor Appleton attended the hearing at which the reporting ruling was delivered, although both had been present at the earlier hearing where the financial dispute was analysed.
The case became a byword for the eye-watering cost of celebrity divorce litigation, with the judge's rebuke highlighting how legal fees had consumed a significant proportion of the wealth at stake. For a couple whose combined assets were ultimately valued at £10.8 million, spending nearly a tenth of that sum on lawyers struck the court as indefensible.
The ruling stands as a cautionary tale for high-net-worth couples: even when the fortune is vast, the machinery of divorce can devour it with startling speed.