John Cleese has had to sell his £8.25 million Santa Barbara home in order to pay his ex-wife the £75,000 he has been ordered to pay in temporary maintenance by a US court. Cleese claims that even though the divorce is going to be extremely expensive, it is worth every penny.

His soon to be ex-wife, Alyce Faye Eichelberger, claims she hasn’t received a penny from the Monty Python star since their split. They were married for 15 years.

Cleese is still trying to see the funny side of things as he claimed he’d sent copies of his wife’s divorce claims to his former Python colleagues, suggesting their may be a reality TV show in there somewhere.

His wife claims that he earns £93,000 per month, which Cleese countered that it was only last year he enjoyed that amount of income due to Shrek 3 and a property investment that netted him £750,000.

But, even if John Cleese was earning £93,000 per month this year, how does that warrant getting £75,000 of that? That’s almost 80% of his income. For work that he has done. What has she done for 80% of John Cleese’s money?

Cleese claims his income now is around £55,000 per month, which means he is now losing money to his ex-wife. At that rate, he’ll be bankrupt in a few years. I hope he has a good lawyer, it looks like his wife is trying to rip him off.

Clive Bellmore