Renee Zellweger and her British TV host boyfriend Ant Anstead have been living apart for the past year, DailyMail.com has learned.
The couple, who began dating in 2021, have not been seen together in public since early March when they were snapped supporting Anstead’s young son at a soccer game.
And Anstead, known for his roles in TV shows Wheeler Dealers and Born Mechanic, has instead been spotted staying overnight at the Laguna Beach home of a glamorous California divorcée while Zellweger has been in New York filming for a TV show.
Anstead, 46, is now facing bankruptcy for his car company, a raft of lawsuits demanding over $3million, and has been selling off his assets.
In recent years he owned a multi-million-dollar house in the exclusive town of Laguna Beach, California, and was pictured in 2022 moving in with Zellweger in her $30,000-per-month clifftop home across the street.
But for the past year he had downgraded to a modest, 832sqft, two-bed rental listed at $4,250 per month.
Anstead’s spokeswoman told DailyMail.com the small house he left over a month ago ‘was rented solely by Mr. Anstead’. His landlord confirmed Zellweger was not on the lease.
The Bridget Jones’s Diary star, 56, is currently in New York City filming a new season of popular Hulu show, Only Murders in the Building, while Anstead was believed to be spending time in his home country, the UK, in recent weeks before returning to Laguna.
His rep told DailyMail.com he ‘continues to remain private about his cherished personal relationship.’ Zellweger’s rep declined to comment.
Meanwhile, a source close to the Bridget Jones star told DailyMail.com they are still dating, despite living apart.
But last week, Anstead was spotted staying overnight at the home of wealthy 36-year-old Laguna woman Julia French – who goes by ‘Jules’.
Jules, who has worked as a certified spin instructor at Rhythm Ride Laguna Beach according to her Facebook page, is currently divorcing her hedge fund founder husband, James Hanna III, the father of her two young children.
A keen-eyed observer told DailyMail.com that in recent months Anstead was even spotted meeting Jules on the beach for a sunset rendezvous, a romantic setting in the sought-after Southern California coastal town.
However, the pair have never been seen engaging in any non-platonic behavior.
A source close to Anstead claimed he had been staying in the apartment on the property since he moved out of his modest rented house around April.
‘One of her kids goes to the same school as Hudson. When Ant’s working late or needs childcare, Hudson goes back with Jules’ kids. Then in the evening Ant picks Hudson up,’ the source said.
‘But they’ve had this flirtatious friendship going on,’ the insider added. ‘So when he moved out of [his two-bed rental], he moved into the apartment above the garage at Jules’ place.
‘He’s trying to find another rental place. But for now, he’s got stuff in storage and he’s got a lot of stuff with Jules.’
The French family are well-known in Laguna and own several properties around the elite seaside town.
Her beachfront, five-bed home is worth an estimated $8million according to real estate site Redfin, and has a separate two-bed unit.
A friend of French who helps manage her properties told DailyMail.com last week that Anstead had not been living at French’s home.
But the TV presenter was spotted returning to the clifftop mansion after watching his son Hudson’s soccer game last Tuesday, the evening of May 20, his car was in the driveway at 7am the following morning, and he was later spotted emerging from the property for a coffee run with a male friend, suggesting he had slept over that night.
Anstead was spotted again later the following day on the beach, talking, smiling, and laughing with another glamorous young woman with tattoos, wearing a colorful bathing suit.
After hanging out on the sand, the pair walked up to the two-bed apartment on Jules’s property and entered.
A source close to Zellweger said the actress is wary of having him move in with her, even after four years of dating.
‘Renée currently has a rental in Laguna. When Ant lost his rental, the obvious thing would have been for him to move into the rental with Renée. But she doesn’t want them cohabiting, so he has to find his own place to stay,’ the source said.
‘That’s kind of how the relationship works.’
Rumors have been swirling of Zellweger and Anstead’s relationship’s potentially rocky status as his financial and legal woes mount.
This month Anstead’s supercar company Radford Motors filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Delaware court, which usually results in the liquidation of a firm.
Anstead even posted a video on Instagram saying he was selling his prized Land Rover Defender – though he claimed in the post that he had a ‘new car incoming’.
He or his company together are facing three lawsuits from customers who accuse him or his company of fraud and breaking contracts, claiming he or his company took their deposits, lied about progress on construction of a million-dollar sports car, then failed to deliver the vehicle or give the angry customers their money back, according to court papers.
And the landlord of his Costa Mesa, California, workshop has reportedly filed to evict Anstead’s company, claiming it continued to occupy the Orange County warehouse despite their lease being terminated.
Office neighbors told DailyMail.com no staff had been seen at the bankrupt company’s workshop for over a week, but Anstead’s spokeswoman said the landlord had ‘withdrawn the claim which was made in error’.
One allegedly stiffed party, Palm Beach surgeon Scott Katzman, ordered a $1million Lotus race car designed for the famous Pikes Peak Hill Climb from Radford.
But he says he got no car, and no refund of his deposit.
Katzman and co-plaintiff Lamborghini Palm Beach filed a lawsuit in Orange County, California, on May 15 last year demanding $1,050,000 plus interest and ‘exemplary and punitive damages’ against Anstead and his two firms, Radford Motors P62, Inc and Finest Coachbuilding Group, LLC (FCG), for failing to refund him or deliver a car.
Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, resident Pastor Velasco, also ordered a Radford car in March 2021 and paid a $100,000 deposit, he said.
At the same time, he loaned Anstead’s firm $2million at 12% interest.
Velasco, who joined the board of Radford and secured his loan against the company’s assets, filed a March 2024 Orange County lawsuit against Anstead’s firm claiming it canceled the car contract and failed to finish repaying the loan or to refund the deposit. He is demanding $2.9million.
A third plaintiff, Timothy Tasker, said he paid a $100,000 deposit in May 2022, but received no car or refund.
Tasker’s lawsuit filed against Anstead’s firm in May last year says he believes that ‘to date defendants have delivered no Type 62 Vehicles and that several people had submitted deposits similar to and in excess of the deposit paid by plaintiff and that those similarly situated individuals have likewise requested the return of their deposits without success.’
Tasker and Katzman’s lawsuits both accuse Anstead’s company of ‘fraud’ for allegedly lying about his car-building progress and his plans to repay debts – and Katzman’s suit names Anstead himself as an alleged perpetrator.
Anstead has denied the legal claims and is contesting the lawsuits in court.
His company called Velasco’s lawsuit an ‘ambush’, and said the judge ruled that Velasco had ‘bullied’ FCG into the loan agreement which ‘unjustly enriched Velasco through his own breaches of fiduciary duty’.
A letter to customers from Radford’s board said they had ploughed more money into the firm to try to save it and deliver orders, but that on legal advice they had recently appointed a trustee ‘to administer and potentially sell the assets of the Company for the benefit of all stakeholders.’
It is the second time that Zellweger has gotten romantically involved with a man accused of the ‘F’ word.
She filed for an annulment from her country singer husband Kenny Chesney in November 2005 after 10 months of marriage, citing ‘fraud’.
Zellweger is best known for playing the titular Bridget Jones who had a hapless habit of picking the wrong guy.
Anstead’s legal and financial troubles could be a case of life imitating art.
Friends were telling DailyMail.com in February that she put the brakes on her relationship with Anstead, revealing she had no plans of marriage to her real-life Mr. Darcy.
‘Renée and Ant have been dating for over three years,’ one insider said. ‘She loves the relationship the way it is.
‘She’s seen so many couples, especially celebrities like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie who have happily dated, only to split not long after getting married.
‘Why would she risk rocking the boat and rushing to take her relationship with Ant to the next level?’
But avoiding binding herself to the British TV personality has not stopped Zellweger from getting caught up in Anstead’s extensive legal drama.
Another lawsuit filed in February by Laguna-based 1980s pop star Tracy Bryn Belland accuses Anstead, Zellweger, and landlord Glenn Wilson of ‘negligence’ for leaving a thin rug placed over a hole in the patio of a modest rental property in Laguna, allegedly causing her to trip and injure her knee.
Belland was one half of sister duo Voice of the Beehive, who had a 1988 hit Don’t Call Me Baby.
She claimed in her Orange County legal filing that Zellweger was a ‘joint tenant’ with Anstead at the 832 sq ft, two-bed rental on Ramona Avenue.
However, landlord Wilson told DailyMail.com that Anstead rented the small house alone, and said the only other inhabitant he knew of was Anstead’s son Hudson, over whom he shares custody with his ex-wife and reality TV star Christina Haack.
