Speaking to The Daily Mail, Rian reveals that it was Paloma’s burgeoning fame that came between the pair, leaving him “crushed”.
The couple tied the knot in 2005 in Paloma’s hometown of Hackney in East London, but their union hit the rocks less than a year later. The ‘Only Love Can Hurt Like This’ singer eventually asked Rian for a divorce while he was in the bath, and he says he could tell her mind was already made up.
“She had thought it through and I knew it was beyond repair. I was crushed,” he told The Daily Mail.
“I can remember getting the last things out of our flat and sitting there by myself, then leaving and locking the door. It was heartbreaking, the end of us.”
Rian and Paloma tied the knot in 2005.
Paloma, whose eccentric antics and heart-wrenching vocals have won her legions of fans, has always kept relatively quiet about the marriage in her past. When news of the failed relationship first broke out two years ago, she seemed to brush it off as a bit of “frivolousness” from her younger years.
“It’s quite insignificant to me because I was really young. I did it in a rush and I took it all as a bit of a joke until I was in it, and then I realised it was serious and got out of it very quickly,” she said then.
For Rian, however, it’s clear their time together was more than a fleeting moment of youthful passion. After travelling to London from New Zealand, he met Paloma while working at a vintage clothing store.
At the time, Paloma was dabbling in music, burlesque and performance art, and Rian was immediately taken by her larger-than-life personality. The two “courted a bit” and quickly became inseparable.
Watch: Paloma models for Agent Provocateur
After a year of bliss, the couple travelled to Thailand for a holiday, where Rian proposed during a romantic swim in the waters off the island of Koh Samet. The ceremony took place just three months later and was attended by the couple’s closest friends and family – but after nine months together, Paloma made the decision to end it. The former couple officially divorced four years later.
Rian says it was the call of stardom that spelled the end of his relationship with Paloma, who has since gone on to release three top-charting albums and win a prestigious Brit Award.
“I knew that if fame came it would be too big a ride for me, for us as a couple,” Rian told the Mail.
“At that time we were committed to one another and to our marriage. I can’t speak for her, but I wanted that feeling to carry on for ever.”
Paloma with actress Rachel Weisz and model Madalina Ghenea at the BFI London Film Festival in 2015. Photo: Getty
After splitting from Paloma, Rian worked as a chef in New Zealand and Australia, before switching fields and training as a taxidermist. He has seen Paloma once more since their painful separation, when she tracked him down at the Melbourne bar he was working at five years ago.
By his own admission, Rian was “not in a good place” at that time, but he doesn’t blame his ex-wife for what happened and looks back on their relationship fondly.
“I never blamed her for anything that happened to me. It was a love story in my head and I was just enjoying the ride and living in the moment,” he told the Mail.
