You may not recognize the name Taran Noah Smith but he's the kid you watched grow up on Tim Allen's "Home Improvements" TV show as the youngest son, Mark. Since the show ended, Taran ran off and married a woman twice his age over his parents objections three weeks after he turned 17. Now 23, he's divorcing and in deep financial do-do.
"I guess I'm living proof that love is blind," Taran told The Enquirer. "I've lost my house, and now I'm fighting to stop my wife from taking my livelihood away from me. I'm done with older women."
Ah, what works for Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore wasn't so hot for Taran and his 38 year old wife.
He also said in the interview that the reason he recently left his wife was because she announced she preferred girls to guys. He said the couple agreed to have an open marriage, yet when Taran found a steady girlfriend, his angry wife smashed every dish they owned.
Now the two are not only divorced, they're fighting over ownership of a business they started together from her recipe of making vegan cheese from cashew nuts. Those are the latest bizarre twists in the love story of Taran and Heidi Van Pelt, a raw foods chef who was 32 when she married Taran.
Taran earned nearly $2 million playing Mark on Home Improvement from 1991 to 1999. The Enquirer published a series of exclusive stories on his wacky antics including him running away from home at 16 with Heidi and their kooky wedding with mood rings instead of wedding bands and strippers as ring bearers. Taran also publicly battled his parents to gain control of his $1.5 million trust fund at 16, and he tried to evict them from their home which he owned.
Another home he owned, a $1 million, four bedroom house in L.A, has been trashed by "friends". His lack of payment caused the bank to foreclose on the house on July 7 and TMZ obtained video of the property, showing that walls had been spray-painted and smashed.
Meanwhile, Taran has apologized to his parents. "I had to go back to them and say: "I'm sorry. You were right about Heidi."
