Dan Brown ‘gave glamorous mistress a $350,000 stallion and gift is key part of bitter divorce battle with ex-wife’
THE plot continues to thicken in the Dan Brown divorce saga as the nasty battle now hinges on a $350,000 stallion the author allegedly gave his “mistress.”
The Da Vinci Code author’s ex-wife Blythe Brown has accused him of having an affair with their former horse trainer, Judith Pietersen, in a lawsuit filed on Monday in New Hampshire.
Pietersen, who is in her 20s, met the couple in 2013 when she flew from Holland to the US to train their horses.
The dressage rider isn’t explicitly named in the lawsuit, but Blythe describes her ex’s alleged mistress as a “young Horse trainer from Holland” and appears to reference her using the initials JP.
The 56-year-old novelist, an equestrian enthusiast, donated horses, a two-horse transportation truck, and a car to Pietersen in addition to paying for her training stable, Blythe claims in her lawsuit.
One of those gifts is supposedly a prize-winning stallion worth nearly $350,000 named LimiTed Edition.
Pietersen has shared several pictures on Facebook of herself with her “dream horse.”
She affectionately refers to as her “big love” in a 2017 post about a Horse of the Year award for the Netherlands-based horse organization KFPS.
“So amazing that my big love Limited Edition is also selected for it,” she wrote.
“Proud of this fantastic horse, he really is a dream horse!”
In her filing, Blythe claims Dan Brown and Pietersen began their tryst in 2014 after she stayed in the couple’s home while recuperating from shoulder surgery.
It was around this time that she noticed a change in her then-husband.
“He started to act distant, dressed differently, and instigated arguments…over inconsequential matters for no apparent reason,” Blythe said in her lawsuit.
The Browns, who wed in 1997, divorced in December 2018 after Dan confessed he wanted to separate because they’d “grown apart”.
Once their $150million divorce was finalized, that’s when Blythe claims she learned of the alleged affair with their horse trainer.
Her lawsuit also accuses her ex-husband of misrepresenting their assets and using funds from their joint accounts to lavishly finance his activities for his “sordid affairs” with his mistresses, including Pietersen.
Blythe confronted her husband about his affairs in January, to which he admitted: “I’ve done bad things with a lot of people.”
Neither Brown nor Pietersen have commented on the affair allegations.
Lawyers for both Dan and Blythe Brown didn’t respond to a request for comment, and attorney information for Pietersen wasn’t immediately available.
Dan Brown has insisted the financial affidavit he signed was correct at the time of the divorce.
“On the day Blythe and I married, I never remotely thought that we eventually would grow so far apart,” he said in a statement.
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“I am saddened that there is not enough goodwill from 21 years of marriage to temper her unfortunate actions.”
Blythe, an art historian, claims she helped craft the ideas for Dan’s bestselling novels, which have sold 250 million copies and grossed more than $2.5billion worldwide.
Dan said in 2017: “I probably wouldn’t have written The Da Vinci Code without her.”