With her first marriage to boxer Mike Tyson lasting just one year and a second marriage falling apart in less than one day, actress Robin Givens has been unlucky in love.
She's now also unlucky in taxes.
The U.S. government has sued the 44-year-old actress over what it says is $292,000 of unpaid federal taxes, interest and penalties as far back as 1996.
In a lawsuit filed last week, the feds asked the federal court in Tampa, Fla. to enter a formal judgment against Givens on 39 separate assessments covering eight of the 12 calendar years through 2007. Such a court finding would make it easier for the Internal Revenue Service to try to collect the allegedly unpaid amounts through garnishing her earnings or levying her assets, such as bank accounts.
The government's petition states that Givens resides in Bradenton, near Tampa. News media reports say at least one of her two children has attended a school there, while other accounts say she shuttles between New York City and Florida.
Her Los Angeles-based agent, Darryl Marshak, confirmed Givens uses a Bradenton address but declined to comment on the lawsuit. No answer has been filed yet in court.
According to the government lawsuit, Givens failed to pay $222,000 in federal taxes. The other $70,000 the government is demanding consists of interest and assorted penalties, including for failure to pay, underpayment of estimated tax and late filing. The pleading does not state what her total income or tax was for the years in question, nor the extent of any partial tax payments.
Givens is no stranger to trouble involving taxes. Public records show numerous state and federal tax liens against her over the years in New York, Florida and California. Many of the federal liens may be part of the new lawsuit against her. In some cases, the liens, which are claims to proceeds from real estate and other assets in the event of a sale, have been released, suggesting payments were made.
A New York native, Givens had her breakthrough role playing rich girl Darlene Merriman in the TV sitcom Head of the Class, which ran for five seasons until 1991. In addition to appearing in numerous other TV shows and movies, she posed for Playboy Magazine and often graced lists of the country's sexiest women.
But Givens is at least as well-known for her turbulent personal life and the often-negative publicity it has generated. In February 1988 she married Tyson, then world heavyweight boxing champion. "The Champ and the Vamp," People magazine jeered.
Givens is still remembered for her sensational TV interview seven months later with Barbara Walters describing her marriage to Tyson--sitting passively at her side--as "torture, pure hell, worse than anything I could possibly imagine."
Their divorce became final on Valentine's Day 1989. Tyson later said she had married him for his money. Unsympathetic press accounts labeled Givens, "the most hated woman in America."
In 1992 Tyson was convicted of raping an 18-year-old beauty queen, for which he served three years in prison. He infamously bit off part of boxer Evander Holyfield's ear during a June 1997 rematch. Tyson, a documentary released this year by director James Toback, contains some of that Walters interview with Givens, which can also be found on YouTube.
Two months later after her ex-husband's ear-biting incident, Givens married her tennis instructor, Svetozar Marinkovic--and, in later divorce papers, said she separated from him the same day. Marinkovic himself was quoted as saying the marriage lasted seven minutes.
On the Forbes "star currency" list, which measures worldwide financial bankability of entertainers, Givens currently ranks 1,224 out of 1,400.
Givens has served recently as a spokeswoman for the National Domestic Violence Hotline. In her 2007 book, Grace Will Lead Me Home, Givens professed no animosity against Tyson, who has had his own share of tax problems.