Just four years ago life couldn’t have been better for Grant Hackett, who told the world he was ready have babies with his wife, Candice Alley, just weeks after celebrating winning two medals at the Beijing Olympics. “The thought of it excites us – and just the fact that I’ve found someone I want to do it with!” he told Woman’s Day in an exclusive interview back then.

“Before I met Candice, it wasn’t a big focus, but when you love someone it’s just a natural evolution.” So what went so terribly wrong in the four years since the much admired swimmer and his pop star wife spoke so glowingly about their future together? Friends say there had been problems ever since the birth of their twins Jagger and Charlize in September 2009, with Grant struggling with the demands of fatherhood, particularly after Candice made him sell his beloved Ferrari.

But the five-year marriage began to publicly collapse in October last year, when police were called to the couple’s home after neighbours reported hearing a violent argument following their appearance at Flemington on Derby Day. Both Grant, 32, and Candice, 30, tried to protect their image as Australia’s “golden couple”, insisting reports Grant had overturned his wife’s grand piano and smashed up their penthouse in an alcohol-fuelled rage were exaggerated. Grant’s drunken behaviour at a post TV Week Logies function in April this year proved to be the last straw for Candice, and Grant moved out of their swish home, later returning to Queensland.

When disturbing photographs of the wrecked apartment, showing holes in walls and broken furniture, were leaked to the media soon after, the couple were again back in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, with Grant dropped from a children’s charity.

Read the latest on Candice and Grant in this week's Woman’s Day on sale Monday July 23, 2012.