Inside Carol McGiffin and Chris Evans’ bizarre wedding and marriage from ‘hell’

Chris Evans is perhaps best known for his whirlwind marriage to popstar Billie Piper, who was just 18 when she married the 34 year old DJ in Las Vegas.

But before Billie, Warrington-born Chris, 54, was married to another famous face – Loose Women panelist Carol McGiffin.

And it didn’t end well.

From the bizarre wedding and reception to volcanic fights and Chris announcing their divorce on air – without telling his wife – according to Carol, the romance turned her into a “crazy, dependent, idiotic human being.”

The pair first locked eyes when Carol, now 60, was working as a producer for cable TV channel Music Box in 1988, and Chris was doing a report on the network for his radio show in Manchester.

“He came into the office, all legs and bright orange hair – but it was the oh-so-confident swagger that got my attention,” she wrote in her autobiography, Oh, Carol!

A year later, they ended up working at the same company in London and when Chris got a gig producing shows for the BBC’s Greater London Radio, he invited Carol to host the What’s On slot for him.

They snogged on a boozy press trip to Dunkirk, and finally sealed the deal after a drunken night out in London.

Recalling that fateful evening, she wrote: “Chris made me laugh until I literally couldn’t get my breath. We were quite drunk and, later when Chris and I went back to his house, we had sex for the first time.

“After that we became embroiled in a relationship of sorts. I was 30, he was 24. We did almost everything together and laughed so much.”

The rising stars quickly fell in love and Chris moved into her flat in Belsize Park, London, but according to Carol, the cracks started to show almost immediately.

She suspected he was trying to make her jealous by staying out late and hanging around with exes. She even claimed he was envious when she landed a hot new job with Disney.

“He would blow hot and cold, where I was the love of his life then just disappear off with ex-girlfriends while saying he was doing other things,” she said.

“It was insane and possibly the most traumatic and troublesome time we’d had for as long as I’d known him.”

The rows got so frequent and fierce that Chris moved out, but when she tried to end things for good in September 1991, it didn’t go as expected.

“He asked me if that was what I really wanted. No, it wasn’t. He then posed the question: ‘So what shall we do? We could get married,'” she wrote of his shocking reaction.

She continued: “He’d suggested this twice before but I’d said no because I thought he was only doing it to either wind someone else up or to see if he could get me to say yes. This time, against my better judgment, I said yes.”

But even the wedding plans set alarm bells ringing. First, she said Chris insisted the wedding had to be on an exact date, September 17, second was that it had to be top secret.

The night before, they drank beer and ate peanuts in the bar of the Holiday Inn, Swiss Cottage.

For the service at the ‘register office from hell’ in Camden, she wore a black pencil skirt and shoes, carried a bunch of garage-bought flowers and tried not to laugh as friends – who had been told to turn up last minute with a video camera – sniggered their way through the ceremony.

“It was quite possibly the most comically tragic moment of my entire life,” she said of her big day.

To top it off, Chris used the launch party for his new show, TV Mayhem, as a paid-for bash for their wedding reception – hence his insistence on the date.

Looking back on her thought process, Carole told Loose Women in 2019 that she didn’t even know why she married him.

“I was just swept along, at the time I convinced myself I couldn’t live without him,” she said.

“Anyone who thinks I married him for his money, that’s nonsense because I had more money than him at the time.

“He was nothing without me, nothing. I’m glad it all went a bit wrong. I persevered with it and I was determined to make it work.”

But the wedding didn’t stop the rows, which she described as ‘pathetic’.

Recalling one of their worst arguments on St Patrick’s Day in 1992, she wrote: “We’d started arguing in a pub so I went home. He stormed in and we began having the altercation from Hell. Things were being lobbed all over the place – glasses, plates, bottles of red wine, chairs, everything – including deeply personal, hurtful insults.

“Chris topped it off by hurling my full-length-mirror over the balcony of the mezzanine. It came crashing to the floor bringing an abrupt halt to the madness.”

By the time he landed his breakthrough gig on The Big Breakfast that May, they were living apart. But she was still horrified when he told his radio listeners: “R.I.P the marriage.”

Carol consulted a lawyer but once again, at the final hour, Chris asked for another chance. With his star on the rise, she threw herself into creating a happy home.

But she claimed he pulled another disappearing act when Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush got commissioned, apparently telling her, “he didn’t want me ‘piggy-backing’ on his fame.”

The end was nigh and after a row about who was going to use the Porsche she told him she was leaving – which sparked another row about who would actually leave the house with Chris managing to escape before she could.

“I was glad to see the back of him but, however much I hated him, I was upset,” she said.

“The sense of failure was overwhelming. But when someone makes life intolerable, impossible and unbearable and is determined to destroy something, then you have to know when to give up.”

Chris went on to marry Billie, and now has four children with current wife and professional golfer, Natasha Shishmanian

And in 2015 he admitted he’d been to see a marriage guidance counsellor to work out where things had gone wrong in the past.

“My issue with marriage is that I’ve been married three times – so does that make me really bad at marriage, or an expert?” he told The Mirror.

“I really want to stay married, and it was a case of ‘How can I best do that?’

“It was about protection of a relationship. My marriage gives me everything – my stability and all that other stuff.”

He continued: “So I asked the lady how and she told me if you really love the person, you give them more of you.

“I really want to stay married, and it was a case of ‘How can I best do that?’

“It was about protection of a relationship. My marriage gives me everything – my stability and all that other stuff.

More On

Chris EvansCarol McGiffin