TOWIE’S Tommy Mallett has claimed he lost a staggering £25 MILLION in his recent court battle.
Tommy, 32, suffered a major financial hit after cutting ties with – and being sued by– his business partner earlier this year.
The pair had been co-owners of the trainer brand, Mallet London, with the reality star even making it to Forbes‘ 30 under 30 rich list.
But Tommy’s seen his bank balance plummet following his legal issues, speaking candidly on Abbey Clancy’s podcast, Exhibit A, about the lessons he’s learnt.
Abbey asked him, “What do you think you’ve lost from your experience with Mallet?” to which Tommy replied, “Multiple millions. In the 20s of millions, probably.”
The model pressed further, asking, “But how have you lost it all? Where’s it all gone?”
Tommy explained, “When you go through court cases and you go through, like, madness between partners and stuff like that, yeah, the business is gonna suffer cause you ain’t taking care of the business.
“You’re supposed to take care of business. Why are we sitting in court for? We’re trying to kill each other over personal stuff. The business is gonna suffer.”
He continued to elaborate on the financial strain affecting his operations, saying, “When you go from earning massive money, you set an infrastructure up to cater for that sort of turnover.
“Soon as that stops, you go from earning loads to losing loads because the infrastructure’s still the same.”
Last month, Tommy’s former business partner Evren Ozka spoke out for the first time about their bitter feud, saying “I am the victim and so is my company”.
Mallett London has taken the footwear world by storm over the last nine years – they built the firm together from scratch in 2015, working from Evren’s premises.
However, Evren alleged Tommy wanted to close the shutters on the fashion firm that they created – which would have left everyone out of a job.
Evren spoke to The Sun in an attempt to “set the record straight” after seeing Tommy’s social media videos slamming him and Mallet London.
Tommy said he was owed money and had been in a “toxic relationship”.
He said his family’s money and “all my kids’ money for the future is tied up in the company”.
Evren, who is also a dad, has responded and said: “I’m the victim and so is my company. There was litigation involved and me and my company won.
“He said ‘they owe me money’, that’s not true. During the case all details were looked at and they decided we were right and what he did was ethically wrong and legally we won.
“The company, since Tommy left, has done really well so we’ll continue to focus on that.”
Evren has no plans to change the name of the popular footwear brand, adding: “I think it’s a great name and I don’t want to change it.
“We founded the company together, and we used my premises for the first year of business to set it up. I invested all of the capital for the business to start.”
Tommy Mallet's Business Journey
Tommy grew his brand and made his fortune from humble beginning that saw him grow up on a council estate in London
While Tommy might be living a life of luxury now; treating himself to a customised Ferrari and flying around the world – it wasn’t always like that for the dad-of-one.
He grew up on a council estate in North London and left school with no GCSEs.
His upbringing is what actually inspired him to create his footwear brand, as he was bullied at school for the clothes he wore.
The businessman said that he was humiliated when he was just 12 because his family couldn’t afford to buy him fashionable trainers.
He trained as a carpenter after school before joining the cast of Towie – which is where he met his fiancée Georgia.
Speaking about his childhood, he told MailOnline: “I feel like at one point in my life I definitely could have had the potential to go down the wrong path but ultimately, I knew that I wanted to do things the right way and to succeed.
“So staying on the right track was important to me.”
His shoe brand is favored by the likes of Drake, Olly Murs, Craig David, and Will.i.am.
He launched Mallet in 2015 and by 2020 the business had clocked up 11.8million sales.
His shoes and apparel is stocked in over 150 stores around the world, and that’s only going to increase.
Tommy, who made the Forbes 30 under 30 list, says he prefers to be known for his work rather than his time on Reality TV.
Asked why they fell out, Evren continued: “One minute, he said ‘I’m leaving for personal reasons’ and then two weeks later he announced a competing brand.
“He wanted to close the company down, so that it didnt compete with his new brand.
“This would have meant job losses for everybody.”
Tommy resigned from his position as Director of the luxury brand on 31 October 2023. On the same day, Christopher Stephenson re-joined as a Director, a role he previously resigned from.
The Sun saw emails from Tommy to Evren confirming the reality star attempted to “wind down” Mallet London a month later.
He still has shares in the company which are locked in.
Immediately after departing Mallet London, Tommy announced his new venture, CTRNE.
But an injunction was issued to protect Mallet London and block CTRNE from trading in Harrods and Selfridges.
Tommy said: “I’m fully starting from scratch, something I never thought I’d have to do, everything I built, all of the late nights and early mornings and time away from my family give me one thing – knowledge, it’s time to go out and do what I originally set out to do…Let’s get it, I’m coming for it all!”
