I came across an interview Ioan did with Celia Walden in the Telegraph in 2008.
Ioan Gruffudd: Blair, Burberry and fatherhood
It has some interesting facts and observations in it. Ioan used to be a smoker. Nicole Appleton dumped him.
'Around that time, while dating Nicole Appleton from girl band All Saints ("until I was unceremoniously turfed out for the next guy"), he met Evans.'
This is odd. He met Alice first.
He basically describes Alice here:
'Moving to LA, where he and his beautiful wife, Francophile actress Alice Evans, have lived for the past five years, doesn't appear to have thinned his character in the way it has for so many exports. "LA is like alcohol: either it accents your natural characteristics or it taps into your insecurities and makes monsters out of people,"
BUT this was the bit that jumped out at me. Ioan used to be the face of Burberry's London Perfume. I didn't think Ioan was political and so I was really surprised and applauded him for this: Good for you Ioan!!!
When, as the face of Burberry London perfume, he heard that three hundred factory workers at the label's Treorchy plant in Wales, near his birthplace, were to lose their jobs last year, Gruffudd refused to turn a blind eye.
"I decided that no amount of money would prevent me from standing up for the poor workers and their decimated community. So I called Burberry up and asked whether there was any way we could make it work for all of us but they just said 'no' and left me for dead. Fine, I thought, you can come and sue me but I'm going to defend these people."
I then googled the Burberry story and came across this article from 2006 in The Independent:
'Face of Burberry' refuses to join jobs battle in homeland | The Independent | The Independent
They'll keep a welcome in the hillsides, as the old Welsh song goes, but only up to a point.
One person for whom the welcome is conditional is Ioan Gruffudd, the Welsh actor. He has become the new face of Burberry - "high class" purveyor of luxury goods, couturier to chavs across the United Kingdom and the main employer in Treorchy, in the Rhondda valley, south Wales.
Burberry is threatening to close its factory, condemning more than 300 people to the dole queue, which presents the Cardiff-born actor with a bit of a PR problem. It is even more of a problem for the Burberry employees. Rhondda is not the kind of place where jobs grow on the Forestry Commission conifers that overlook the plant.
So far, intermediaries for Mr Gruffudd have said he is "sad" about the job losses but unable to back a campaign to save the factory.
A letter from his public relations adviser yesterday, marked "not for publication", says that because the actor is contracted to the company it would be "inappropriate" for him to comment. He hopes, however, that "everything works out".
Leighton Andrews, a member of the Welsh Assembly for Rhondda, said the workers were hoping for a little more from the actor who starred as Horatio Hornblower in the ITV adaptation of the Forester novels and played Lancelot to Keira Knightley's Guinevere in the recent film about King Arthur.
John Harris, a union official at the plant, said of Mr Gruffudd's response: "We understand his position but he's a Welsh megastar and we were hoping that he woud be more supportive."
Fuck you Ioan.
How fucking dare he portray himself as the hero in this 2 years after he said he wouldn't help. He was bowing to public pressure. This shows how aware he is of his public image and please, anyone that comes on here to say 'it wasn't him, it was his PR people', the usual Ioan can do no wrong with some posters. He is the one who chose to paint himself as the hero 2 years later.
what Ioan thought of their production decisions? Was their response to his letter “who tf is this bloke, boot him now.”? Poor Ioan never seems to get a break does he, it’s like he’s always stuck in impossible situations. He’s no George Clooney or Brad Pitt that he can pull stunts like that and still get deals, he’s easy to replace.
