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Life comes at you fast. One minute, you’re Instagramming your Maldives holidays and nouveau riche Bridezilla wedding (mostly courtesy of a cool couple of million trousered from the Australian taxpayer), the next, you’re putting your chi-chi French villa on the market to pay the legal bills.
Perhaps you’re not “quite the twosome when it [comes] to game planning” as you thought, eh Brittany?
Brittany Higgins says she has been forced to sell her house in France as “the unspeakably high price” of speaking out on sexual assault in her defamation battle against former defence minister Linda Reynolds.
Ms Higgins is believed to have bought the house last year for about $600,000, raising questions about what has happened to the rest of the $2.4m compensation payout from the commonwealth.
This is just weeks after her new hubby, David Sharaz (who hasn’t worked full-time since shortly after Ms Higgins received her millions in 2022), told the court he was unable to continue paying lawyers to defend his case. All in all, it looks like it’ll be nouilles en deux minutes on the family menu for a while.
Her lawyers have told the court she has less than $10,000 in assets, outside whatever is left in the “Brittany Higgins Protective Trust” set up to hold the payout.
The announcement Ms Higgins is selling her home in Lunas, in the south of France, comes just days after a court ordered she must reveal details of the trust to Senator Reynolds.
The Liberal MP wants to ensure that if she wins the defamation case, she is able to access any assets in the trust still held by her former staffer.
Just how far does a couple of mill go these days?
Last week, Senator Reynolds’ lawyers told the West Australian Supreme Court Ms Higgins enjoyed a “sudden splurge of spending” after she secured a commonwealth payout, including taking her then-boyfriend and now-husband, David Sharaz, on a holiday to the Maldives.
The couple have also holidayed elsewhere in Europe and were married in June at luxury venue The Valley Estate on the Gold Coast, behind a strict wall of security in the Currumbin Valley, at a reported cost of more than $100,000.
Ms Higgins’s gown was designed by Paolo Sebastian, whose creations retail for up to $30,000.
It’s quite the pity-party at Chez Higgins.
“The price of speaking out about sexual assault remains unspeakably high. Brittany is now forced to sell her home in order to defend herself again.”
She wouldn’t have to defend herself if she hadn’t made outrageous claims about her former boss. Higgins effectively destroyed Reynolds’ career with her claims that the former minister had orchestrated a “cover up” of the rape allegations. Earlier this year, judge Michael Lee found that no such cover up took place.
Not everyone is finding much room for pity for the would-be power couple.
Sky News contributor Prue MacSween has urged Brittany Higgins’ husband to “get a job” after he called her vile on social media for her discussion of the couple’s decision to sell their French home to pay legal fees […] the commentator has hit back after Mr Sharaz unleashed on the 72-year-old on social media.
“I would have thought he’d be better placed to use all his efforts to find himself a job rather than trolling on X,” she said.
“I have no interest in his opinion of me. I think he should be focused on considering the repercussions of his strategies & political games. They are pretty vile.”
Linda Reynolds, for her part, is putting her money where her mouth is.
Senator Reynolds’ legal team has previously confirmed she had mortgaged her house to fight the case which centres on a series of social media posts where Brittany Higgins criticised how her boss handled her rape allegation.
While Senator Reynolds has not confirmed how much she has spent on legal fees to date on the pursuit of alleged rape victim Ms Higgins and her partner David Sharaz, the amount is believed to be likely to exceed $1 million if the trial proceeds.
Good luck getting the money back, if Higgins’ spendthrift boasting on Instagram is any indication.
Then there’s the impending corruption investigation into the circumstances of the payout.
Mon frere, can you spare a franc?
