Inside Isla Fisher & Sacha Baron Cohen’s toxic split with digs & ‘fat shame’ claims as they carve up £120m fortune
THEY announced their supposedly harmonious divorce with a cheesy snap posing in tennis whites – but now it seems Isla Fisher and Sacha Baron Cohen are at break point.
Determined to put a glossy spin on their split last April, the beaming stars shared a carefully curated social media post insisting there was a complete lack of animosity.
Isla, 49, and Sacha, 53, cheerfully told friends there would be no drama, no tension and no bitter legal wrangles.
Fast forward twelve months and it’s a rather different story.
Things are getting very messy indeed, and insiders say initial attempts at an amicable parting of ways have turned sour as top Hollywood lawyers gleefully carve up the couple’s £120million fortune.
It’s a far cry from their initial announcement, when they told their followers: “After a long tennis match lasting over 20 years, we are finally putting our racquets down.
“We have always prioritised our privacy, and have been quietly working through this change.
“We forever share in our devotion and love for our children.
“We sincerely appreciate your respecting our family’s wish for privacy.”
But now sources say: “It’s war.”
The former couple first said they would continue to be based primarily in the UK, for the sake of continuity and prioritising the education of their three children, aged 17, 14 and ten.
They would simply buy two neighbouring houses close to the kids’ schools in north London, and continue to share parenting duties as before.
‘But Isla has been flying between the UK and Australia for months filming her new movie, Spa Weekend, while Sacha is hanging out with his posse of famous friends in LA.
They have help from nannies for the children, based in North London.
One local insisted: “They put on a show of making it seem civilised at first, but that’s all gone now.
“Nobody is pretending any more. It’s war.”
Isla had fervently hoped to avoid drawing up battle lines.
Her Scottish parents, Elspeth and Brian, divorced when she was just nine years old, but she said she never remembered them arguing. “It was very harmonious,” she recalled in an interview.
“I don’t ever remember them fighting about anything.
“They were very inclusive of each other.”
Isla insisted that she and Sacha would strive to be just as “inclusive” in their own similarly peaceful negotiations.
The stars were once one of Hollywood’s golden couples.
When they first met in Sydney in 2001, she was a well-known soap star, having made her name as Shannon Reed in Home And Away, while Sacha was already an A-lister.
He later described their first encounter as “hilarious”, recalling: “We were at a very pretentious party, and me and her bonded over taking the mick out of the other people at the party.
“I knew instantly. I don’t know if she did.”
Sacha had shot to fame after introducing spoof gangster Ali G in the late Nineties, and went on to star as Borat, a journalist from Kazakhstan, and flamboyant Austrian fashionista Bruno.
Shortly after the couple announced their engagement, Isla landed her breakthrough role in The Wedding Crashers in 2005.
They tied the knot in Paris in 2010, after Isla converted to Sacha’s religion of Judaism.
Newly married, they lived in America, but later moved to Perth, Australia, to be close to Isla’s family.
However, Sacha reportedly struggled to settle there.
As a compromise, when lockdown restrictions were lifted, they swiftly moved back to his native London.
He also kept his seven-bed mansion in the Hollywood Hills.
Then came a major blow when fellow Aussie actress Rebel Wilson made a series of deeply unsavoury claims about Sacha in her 2024 memoir, Rebel Rising.
Rebel, 45, alleged that Sacha sexually harassed her and behaved inappropriately on the set of his 2016 movie The Brothers Grimsby.
Among the tawdry accusations, she claimed the comedian had fat-shamed her.
Rebel said: “That was the worst professional experience and that was where it crossed the line.
“It wasn’t comedy. It just crossed the line into an experience where I did feel humiliated and degraded for being an overweight woman.”
The film was a box office flop, and Rebel claimed Sacha pressured her into doing a nude sex scene, despite her no-nudity rule, and made her wear clothes that showed her in the most unflattering light.
‘EMBARRASSING ALLEGATIONS’
He is also alleged to have bullied her and asked her to stick her “finger up his b*tt”.
Rebel likened the comedian to a “fourth-grade bully who teases the fat girl on the playground and tries to make her life a living hell”.
Sacha vehemently denied all the “demonstrably false claims”.
He insisted the intimate moments were all consensual and part of the pre-approved script.
Days later, Sacha and Isla announced that they had filed for divorce in 2023.
At the time, one source claimed that the headlines about Rebel were the “catalyst” in their decision to share the news, claiming Isla was “starting to get embarrassed” by the allegations.
But another insider said it had “nothing to do” with the divorce announcement, alleging they had just wanted to give their children time to get used to the news.
Both stars remained tight-lipped about the split until February this year, when Isla posed for a sultry photoshoot alongside a revealing interview, allegedly enraging Sacha.
He believed it broke their informal agreement not to discuss their private lives.
Discussing the split with The Sunday Times, Isla, who has published a series of children’s books, said: “It’s the most difficult thing I’ve been through and I’ve learnt so much about myself in the process.
“I never imagined my family being separated, but we are committed and loving parents.
“I think because of the challenges I’ve gone through in the last two years, I don’t see that it will change much.”
She went on to heap gushing praise on her female friends for their support during the emotional upheaval of the separation.
Isla said: “The women in my life have held me.
“The female relationships I cultivated in our business — those women have been there for me.
“I’m actually going to get emotional. I’m sitting here today because of them.
“I’ve learnt so much about the power of female friendship and I’ve just learnt that I do have resilience, who I am outside of a partnership, and what my values are.”
Our source added: “Isla wanted the world to know she’s moved on.
“She turns 50 next year and she’s ready for a fresh start.
“But Sacha took it as a thinly veiled personal dig, and made him feel like she was siding with Rebel.
“Those remarks about women sticking together made him very upset.
Sacha is not happy about it at all — she’s come out fighting and it’s come as a bit of a shock
Source
“They have always been very private people, so Isla speaking out was a massive shock to him and a clear sign she isn’t going to be the doting wife any more.”
Now Isla is confiding to friends that she wants to take on bigger work opportunities.
Our source explained: “Isla often said she had felt obliged to put her career on the back-burner while the children were small.
“For years, it felt like Sacha was in the driving seat.
“But now that the children are growing up and getting a bit more independent, she is planning to refocus her efforts, start writing again and take on bigger roles.”
They added of Isla, who played Bridget Jones’ neighbour Rebecca in new film Mad About The Boy: “She loved being back in the thick of things with the recent Bridget Jones movie.
“Working on a big, buzzy movie set again made her realise just how much she had missed the business.
“But Sacha is not happy about it at all — she’s come out fighting and it’s come as a bit of a shock.”
As the increasingly bitter divorce proceedings drag on into their second year, there may be many more volleys to come.
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