There was a time when Martine McCutcheon had the world at her feet. She became the nation’s sweetheart playing loveable barmaid Tiff in EastEnders in the Nineties before bagging a number one record with her single Perfect Moment, and went on to achieve worldwide fame opposite Hugh Grant in Love Actually.
There was even a Laurence Olivier Award, for her role as Eliza Doolittle in the 2002 National Theatre’s stage production of My Fair Lady.
She was often likened to a cockney Catherine Zeta-Jones – a similar rags-to-riches actress who successfully conquered Hollywood.
Martine – whose net worth was once estimated as being more than £2million – was sure to follow.
Not so. Earlier this month it was revealed that the London-born actress has been declared bankrupt for the second time in a little over a decade, just months after a high-profile split from her husband of 12 years, Jack McManus, 40.
Yet those who know her are not surprised this has happened again.
A common refrain when you speak to Martine’s associates – people who have worked with her, and even her friends – is: ‘She’s lovely, but… ’
What follows is usually a variation of ‘a bit much’, ‘a lot to handle’, and most damning of all ‘an absolute nightmare’.
I’m told that she has really struggled to get work in recent years and there is very little sympathy for her.
Martine McCutcheon has been declared bankrupt for the second time in a little over a decade
Martine achieved worldwide fame opposite Hugh Grant in Love Actually
One former colleague said: ‘She is the type of person you would happily have a drink with, but would hate to work with. She can be very demanding and difficult, and she is someone that doesn’t pay her bills on time.
‘If you look at her career she did one big theatre job, one big film, and one big TV show. She doesn’t get asked back.’
When Martine, 49, and Jack – a singer-songwriter who went to the famous Brit School – married in Italy’s Lake Como in 2012, everything looked to be going to plan. They’d met at a music event in 2006, with Martine recalling: ‘We laid eyes on each other and that was it.’
But a year after their wedding, Martine was declared bankrupt for the first time after reportedly racking up debts of £187,000 – which included £150,000 owed to HMRC. She is believed to have been discharged from that bankruptcy in 2014.
The couple’s son, Rafferty, was born in 2015, and they were solvent enough to splash out on a £1.3million, five-bedroom house in Surrey in June 2022.
Last year, however, they announced their shock split – with Martine making it very clear where she considered the blame lay for the marriage’s demise.
‘After much thought and consideration, Jack has decided it’s best for us to separate after 18 years together and I accept his decision,’ she wrote online.
The marital home was put on the market with an asking price of £1,355,000 and two months later she was declared bankrupt for a second time. It was made in her married name – Martine McManus – despite her being formally single by then, and issued in March at the County Court in Guildford, Surrey, following a petition filed by a company called LDF Finance to whom she owed an unspecified sum of money.
But that wasn’t the only blow. The former couple’s firm Raven Music Ltd was wound up last month at the request of HMRC due to unpaid tax bills. The latest accounts reveal that it owed more than £175,000 to the taxman, payable in the 12-month period after February 2022.
By her own admission, financial acuity has never been a character strength. As one friend told me: ‘Martine has never been great with money. She dragged herself out of the gutter and likes to treat herself with the finer things in life, and who can blame her? She’s haunted by her own childhood demons and doesn’t want her son Rafferty going without.
‘But it became more and more of an issue. Their marriage was rocky at the best of times – Martine will admit that herself. But towards the end there were a lot of arguments about finances.’
Martine with her now ex-husband, Jack McManus, and their son, Rafferty
Martine and Jack had a high-profile split after 12 years of marriage
Another factor, says the friend, is Martine’s diagnosis with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder).
‘Like a lot of people with ADD, Martine can be prone to impulsive buying,’ they said. ‘It’s a common trait, particularly when you are going through a hard time. And times have not been easy for her. She lost her brother LJ in 2022, and Jack’s father Mick died in 2024.
‘There’s been an awful lot going on and the thing with Martine is, she puts her head in the sand and as her work has dried up she hasn’t cut her cloth accordingly.’ Indeed, Martine once said: ‘I love nice things – I consider Ralph Lauren sheets to be a necessity, not a luxury – but I’ve known what it’s like to be poor.
‘I’m a Taurean, so I’m very passionate and determined and materialistic. Down the years I’ve spent a lot of money and saved a bit of money and had a lot of fun.’
But the source said that while Martine would admit she can be a bit financially incontinent, Jack was ‘not bringing much to the table’. Sources close to the star indicated she tried to save her marriage but eventually accepted her husband’s choice to move on. Marital woes aside, how did this talented young woman manage to wind up losing it all – twice?
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The answer may lie in theatre land, where the phrase ‘doing a Martine’ is often used to describe those who have a lot of time off.
During her stint as the lead Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, she famously played fewer nights than her understudy during its three-month run at the National, before transferring to Drury Lane.
And when she surprisingly won best actress at the Oliviers for the performance, Jonathan Pryce – who starred opposite her as Professor Higgins – sat behind her stony-faced.
He later explained: ‘It was an entirely honest reaction. I could have sat there fake-smiling and fake-clapping – there were people around me who were applauding while grimacing – but the whole thing was, for me, riddled with irony and I had a very ironic look on my face. Why did I think it was ironic? That Martine won an award for her brief appearances? Well, there you go, it’s ironic.’
Martine’s recent work has mainly consisted of TV adverts, including an Activia yoghurt commercial, one for McVitie’s biscuits in which she played a tea lady (a role she last played in Love Actually), and dancing to the reworked lyrics of ‘Ooh Aah… Just a Little Bit’ in a Lidl advert.
Not helping matters, I can reveal, is that Martine and her manager ‘mutually agreed’ to part ways just a few weeks ago.
So, what next? She has told friends she is determined to ‘bounce back’ after the breakdown of her marriage and build a life for her and her son.
The dedicated spiritualist, who does daily guided meditations, is also said to be ‘manifesting’ a bright future.
And indeed it could be a very sparkly one.
There is a rumour flying around the BBC’s Elstree studio that the former musical theatre star will put back on her dancing shoes to earn some much-needed cash by starring in Strictly Come Dancing’s next series.