Author Dan Brown's Ex-Wife Files Suit Accusing Him of Using Marital Assets to Fund Affairs
Author Dan Brown’s ex-wife has filed suit against him, alleging The Da Vinci Code scribe “lived a proverbial life of lies” during their marriage, and removed substantial funds from their marital assets in order to conduct affairs with multiple women.
Blythe Brown accused Dan, 56, of various wrongdoings in the lawsuit, which was filed in Rockingham Superior Court in New Hampshire on Monday and has been obtained by PEOPLE.
As first reported by the Boston Globe, Blythe's suit said her claims are based upon Dan’s “unlawful and egregious conduct” over the last few years of their marriage, which officially ended in December 2019.
The lawsuit portrays Blythe — who married Dan in 1997 — as a supportive partner who helped her husband recognize and pursue his talents as a writer, and who even contributed “key themes and critical ideas” to his novels, including the premise of the 2003 smash hit The Da Vinci Code.
“The relationship between Blythe and Dan was based on mutual trust, respect and honesty — or so she believed,” the suit said. “As it turns out, for the last several years of their marriage, Dan engaged in a systematic pattern of deception and lies.”
Blythe said Dan conducted affairs with various women, including a hairdresser, a political official and his personal trainer, beginning in 2014, and concealed funds that constituted assets of their marriage to hide his trysts.
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In a statement to PEOPLE, Dan says he was “stunned” by Blythe’s “false claims,” and that he had been fair and truthful to her in their divorce settlement, through which he said she received more than half of their holdings.
"I have no heart to dispute my former wife in public, nor do I take pleasure in having to do so in court," he says, adding that the suit was "written without regard for the truth."
"For reasons known only to her and possibly her lawyer, Blythe Brown has created through this suit a fictional and vindictive account of aspects of our marriage designed to hurt and embarrass me," he adds.
One of his alleged mistresses was a horse trainer in Holland whom Blythe had initially hired to travel to the U.S. to help the couple train their Friesian horse, the suit said.
The woman — who is referred to as “JP” — allegedly became a friend of the family and had an affair with Dan for six years. The suit said he’d take money out of his and Blythe’s accounts to buy her “extravagant gifts” and finance a horse training business for her in Holland.
Blythe said that she reluctantly moved out of her and Dan’s New Hampshire home in August 2018 after he became “exceedingly contentious” and asked for a divorce on the grounds that they had “grown apart,” the suit said.
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Brown said in his statement that the couple shared little in common by the end of their marriage, and that he'd asked Blythe to enter marriage counseling three times, which she allegedly refused.
As the couple worked out their divorce on the financial terms he requested, Dan was secretly “siphoning funds from their accounts and assets for his own benefit,” according to the suit.
Blythe said she only recently learned of her ex-husband’s double life, and when she confronted him, he allegedly admitted to his infidelity and to using “substantial” sums of their money to carry on the affairs. He is also accused of lying under oath in his financial affidavit.
Additionally, the suit claimed that Dan told Blythe he did not have any projects in the pipeline, but that he actually has several in the works, including a TV series called Langdon, which is based on novels the couple “created together,” and from which he stands to make millions.
Blythe says her ex-husband’s actions have made it hard to sleep and eat, and have left her in “significant emotional distress.”
“This lawsuit is about standing up for myself and asserting my self-worth,” Blythe says in a statement to PEOPLE. “I have continually tried to absorb the shocking truth withheld during our divorce that Dan had been leading a double life for many years during our marriage, all while coming home to me. I trusted this man for decades as my life’s love. We worked so hard together, struggling to build something meaningful. With great success came our promises to each other that we would not let it change us or our life together. I don't recognize the man that Dan has become. It is time to reveal his deceit and betrayal. After so much pain, it is time for truth. It is time to right these wrongs.”
Her attorney Harvey J. Wolkoff adds in a statement that Blythe intends to hold Dan “accountable for his dishonesty” via the lawsuit.
Meanwhile, in Dan's statement, he says that he stands by “truthfulness” of the financial affidavit he signed, and that it was a complete list of the couple’s assets at the time.
"As part of the settlement agreement we reached, all of our assets as of that date were listed in writing. That document became part of the signed decree when we divorced in 2019. I swore to the truthfulness of what was contained on that list, and I stand by that financial statement today. We were very fortunate that we equally were blessed with very substantial assets with which to move forward after that," he says. "I am stunned that now, years later, Blythe is seeking even more, and making false claims in her attempts. I also am saddened that there is not enough goodwill from 21 years of marriage to temper her unfortunate actions."
His attorney Joan Lukey has filed a motion on his behalf to unseal confidential financial information in the divorce settlement in order to refute Blythe’s claims, the Globe reported.
