The story of how Lawrence Dallaglio’s marriage suffered when his wife had an affair with his close friend, following his loss of the England captaincy due to his involvement with escorts

The marriage of Lawrence Dallaglio, a renowned England rugby player, faced challenges after his wife had an affair with one of his close friends before they got married.

Alice Corbett, a former model, engaged in a brief relationship with millionaire property developer Leon Butler in 2005 when her relationship with Dallaglio started to struggle following the birth of their three children.

This incident occurred six years after Dallaglio was removed as the England team captain when he reportedly admitted to engaging with prostitutes in Amsterdam. He was also accused of using and distributing cocaine and ecstasy.

He was stripped of the England captaincy after strenuously denying the drugs claims, although he went on to play a key role in England’s World Cup winning side in 2003.

Alice and Dallaglio who reportedly had his own fling with a married woman two years previously had hoped to make a clean start when they got married in 2005 after ten years together.

Their marriage survived a succession of scandals including Dallaglio being accused of spending £10,000 at a London brothel which offered high-class hookers and cocaine, and being forced to close his business while facing a £700,000 tax bill.

But it was revealed today that the couple’s near 20 year marriage was finally over after they reportedly attended the Central Family Court in Holborn in London on Tuesday in an attempt to agree to the terms of their separation.

A source close to the couple told MailOnline: ‘It seems that their relationship and marriage never really totally got over Alice’s fling. They obviously hoped they could put it all behind them – but it was something they could not completely forget.

‘It is a great shame because they were happy together for many years, and it’s not to say that Lawrence’s own behaviour and shortcomings might have contributed to things going wrong as well.’

Dallaglio had revealed in March 2005 that he and Alice were on a ‘trial separation’ following claims that she was fed up with his rugby commitments taking him away from home for months at a time, and was running out of patience over their failure to marry.

He tried to play down their separation at the time, saying: ‘We want to make it work. As far as I’m concerned, we’re not splitting for good.’ He was said to have added: ‘Like any couple with young children, we are determined to make our relationship work.’

But just days later it was claimed that Alice had been visiting Butler, then 32, at his £2 million house in Chelsea while Wasps captain Dallaglio was away playing and training.

Dallaglio’s suspicions of an affair were reportedly confirmed after he discovered the mother of his three children had made hundreds of late night calls to Butler on her mobile phone.

The revelation was said to have left him distraught amid fears that it had destroyed his hopes of patching up his relationship with Alice, the mother of his daughters, Ella and Josie, and his son Enzo.

A close friend of former choirboy Dallaglio told The Sun at the time: ‘He’s gutted. Lawrence had his suspicions but now he knows about the phone calls, they have been confirmed.

‘It is a particular blow to Lawrence because Leon is friends with several of his England and Wasps teammates.’

Alice was reported to have been introduced to Butler by another one of Dallaglio’s rugby friends.

A pal added at the time: ‘Alice began telling Leon her problems. At first, he was a shoulder to cry on, but it snowballed into a romance. It is very unlikely Lawrence and Alice will be able to patch things up.’

The Sun also reported that Alice’s affair came two years after Dallaglio had his own fling with a married mother of one. Although the affair only lasted a few weeks, it reportedly led to the end of the woman’s marriage.

Butler later went on to carve out a new career as a film writer and producer with his best known work being 100 Streets in 2016, starring Idris Elba as a former rugby star losing his way since his glory days and being on a downward spiral with a disintegrating marriage.

Dallaglio, now 52, earned 85 caps playing for England in a glittering career which had the World Cup victory in 2003 as its highlight.

He was also picked for the British & Irish Lions on three separate tours, and won five Premiership titles and two Heineken Cups in the all-conquering Wasps teams of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The former back row had multiple stints as England captain and since his retirement in 2008, he has worked as a pundit on TV and radio, while he has also been widely praised for his charity work.

A source confirmed his marriage break-up to The Sun, saying: ‘They have been together a very long time and weathered a number of storms. It is sad as they must have decided it is best now to go their separate ways.’

Dallaglio was first hit by scandal in 1999 when he was coerced to speak to an undercover reporter from the now defunct News of the World, and bragged about having sex with prostitutes while staying in an Amsterdam hotel.

He was quoted as telling journalist who was posing as the representative of a shaving cream manufacturer: ‘I used to be a (teenage) drug dealer. I made big, big money from dealing in drugs.

‘Why do you think I know so much about drugs? I was surrounded by it. I used to drive from one end of London to the other with five or six ounces of it (cocaine). That’s how I used to make money before I took up rugby.’

The newspaper also reported that Dallaglio boasted how he and two other players had taken the drug ecstasy ‘and then a couple of wraps of coke’ to celebrate winning the 1997 Lions series in South Africa.

Dallaglio was horrified when the article appeared, and claimed that he had made up much of what he’d said to the journalist because he was ‘naïve and foolish’.

At a press conference following his resignation as captain, Dallaglio, then 26, admitted he had experimented with drugs in his late teens and ‘for that I am not proud’.

But he told reporters he was now ‘completely against drugs’, adding: ‘I will always regret the effect that this has had on everyone.’

He said that while ‘I cannot deny that what was said in the interview is was what was reported’, no drugs had been taken on the Lions tour. He had lied to ‘impress’.

The Rugby Football Union eventually dropped drugs charges against him after ‘new evidence’ emerged during an open hearing chaired by a high court judge.

He was instead fined £15,000 for bringing the game into disrepute on top of legal costs amounting to £10,000.

More than 20 years later in 2020, Dallaglio was at the centre of more intrigue when his name was mentioned during the trial of four men and a woman accused of running a brothel in Holborn, central London, where customers were able to purchase cocaine.

Wood Green Crown Court heard how a police undercover operation led to the premises in a Georgian townhouse being raided in July 2019.

Hugh Forgan, prosecuting, told how the vice operation charged up to £300 per hour for sex and made £400,000 in just six months.

Mr Forgan said: ‘It wasn’t just sex that was for sale there… Cocaine was available as well. Condom wrappers were found in the bedrooms, and the basements also contained rooms with sex toys and bondage gear.

‘In the fireplace, police found a safe. As they moved it they noticed it was leaking white powder so it was taken to the garden and opened with an angle-grinder.

‘Inside that safe, police found an Iceland supermarket bag, inside the outer bag was a Sainsbury’s bag, and inside that bag there were further bags containing white powder.

‘When later weighed, that white powder came a little short of 2kg and that powder was boric acid, a cutting agent for cocaine.’

In a secret compartment in a basement lavatory, officers also found ‘a bag containing five PDQ (credit card) machines, folders with receipts and what may be called diary books, together with sums of money.’

Mr Forgan added: ‘A brothel is a business and this brothel was run in an organised way. There were handheld devices taking payments so they could pay by credit card if they didn’t have cash.’

Using evidence from the card machines prosecutors compiled a spreadsheet of payments made at the address, including four from Dallaglio’s account on March 22, 2019, amounting to a total of £10,500.

One of the transactions, for £7,550, was paid into the account of one of the defendants, a Romanian madam aged 22. The so-called payments ‘by Mr Dallaglio’ were referred to by the judge in his summing up.

Judge Rachim Singh said Dallaglio’s legal team had been informed that reporting restrictions on the main trial were to be lifted following the end of a related court case.

Dallaglio had not been called as a witness but was reportedly interviewed under caution by police in the presence of a solicitor. He declined to make any comment about the nature of the alleged expenditure on his credit card.

The Metropolitan Police confirmed a 47-year-old man was not arrested, and no further action was being taken against him. Dallaglio did not respond to the Mail’s request for comment at the time.

Dallaglio faced financial problems in May 2023 when HMRC served a bankruptcy petition against him, but he was given more time by a judge to clear a £700,000 tax bill under what was described as a ‘voluntary agreement’.

In a separate case, it emerged last December that he was being pursued liquidators who were trying to recover £423,570.43 he had loaned himself from his company Lawrence Dallaglio Limited. This was more than the £366,510 they initially thought he owed.

A report said the cash was needed to pay creditors, headed by HMRC which had demanded payments of £290,000 and £64,000. Other creditors included taxi firm Parker Cars Limited owed £1,891.82 and Coutts Bank owed £24,000.

A liquidators’ progress report said that Dallaglio’s company which he set up in 1997 had lost cash went it went into liquidation last year.

Dallaglio avoided the company being legally wound up in the High Court after his representatives told a judge he was liquidating the firm in 2023.

The former player overcame tragedy in his personal life, with his sister Francesca being among 51 victims of the Marchioness disaster in 1989 when two boats collided on the River Thames in London.

On the 35th anniversary of the tragedy last year, the rugby icon paid tribute to his late sister in an Instagram post.

He set up his own charity Dallaglio RugbyWorks following the death of his mother Eileen from cancer in 2008.

After some initial huge success, Dallaglio refocused the charity on a social inclusion programme, aiming to help teenagers who have been excluded from mainstream education.

He has also taken part in several physical challenges, including cycling events, and has raised millions of pounds in the process.