Ryan's Painful Past

Court documents from Ryan Gosling’s parents’ 1996 divorce reveal just how fraught the actor’s family life was — and how far he’s come from his darkest days

Ryan Gosling shares two daughters with Eva Mendes and gushes about her any chance he gets. Yet the longtime loves have shown little interest in making their partnership “legal” with a wedding. Why? New details about Ryan’s parents’ contentious 1996 divorce might offer a hint. As a teenager, a childhood friend of the 36-year-old star explains, “Ryan was devastated by his parents’ split and, even more so, by all of the ugliness that came after.”

Based on Canadian court documents obtained by OK!, Ryan’s trauma seems understandable. In one pretrial memo, his mother, Donna, alleged that she’d been physically assaulted by his father, Thomas, shortly after their 1994 separation. In another affidavit, Thomas attempted to escape his child support obligations by griping, “Our children have severed their relationship with me. The only relationship they want now is that I pay what they demand.”