Birgit Cunningham

Birgit Cunningham (born 6 January 1963) is a British-American events organiser, activist, and campaigner for the rights of single mothers.

Early life Cunningham was born in San Francisco, the daughter of a treasurer of the Bank of America and a German-born mother, and is the eldest of three daughters. When she was nine, her family moved to England and settled at Leatherhead in Surrey. She was educated at Roedean, then earned a degree in history of art at Rutgers University. After that, aged twenty-two, she moved to Paris and worked in an art gallery. A self-described gold digger, she became "a serial dater of trust-funded, Chelsea-based bachelors".

Cunningham continued her "party-girl" ways in Los Angeles, dating American actor Kevin Costner for three years and, in 1996, marrying German actor Gedeon Burkhard in Las Vegas then soon divorcing him. Her binge drinking turned into alcoholism, one time drinking a bottle of tequila, becoming unconscious and found herself in hospital. In 1999, she helped to persuade Sting, Jude Law, Simon and Yasmin Le Bon and Sadie Frost to support an organic picnic in Greenwich. As an events organiser, she co-ordinated green protests against GM food.

In February 2000, at a conference of the National Farmers' Union, as a protest against a financial crisis for small farmers, Cunningham squashed a chocolate éclair into the face of Nick Brown, the Labour government's Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Later she said she had "just flipped" and was sorry. Zac Goldsmith, editor of The Ecologist, commented that Cunningham was likely to be helping the magazine to hold its own conference on "the real farm crisis".

In 2001 Cunningham took a job with the Green Party, working as senior press officer for the Green members of the newly established London Assembly.

Motherhood and child support activist In England, Cunningham revived a relationship with Harry Nuttall, a racing driver from a rich family that she had dated before leaving for California.

Cunningham took a one-year paralegal course at Westminster College, A court hearing in 2005 confirmed the level of support from Nuttall as £5.40 a week, and on the way out of court Cunningham kneed Nuttall in the groin. She was charged with assault and appeared in a magistrate's court in November 2006, pleading "guilty as hell". After explaining the background to the case she received a conditional discharge.

Nuttall's father, Sir Nicholas paid the airfares for a visit to his grandson in the Bahamas in 2005, and in July 2007, a few days before his death, arranged a final meeting. After that, Cunningham asked the CSA for a child support review, but Nuttall proved to the CSA that he had no income at all, and the payments of £5.40 ended. A claim in the family division of the High Court failed to award any child support, after the judge, Mr Justice Singer, had asked "Do you seriously expect Mr Nuttall to sell his shooting rifles for child maintenance?"

Later life In 2011 Cunningham was reported to be suffering from back pain caused by scoliosis and degenerative disc disease, diagnosed in 2006. In 2012, she was in a wheelchair and hoping for surgery.

Her son, Jack, is an actor who appeared as Young Hamlet in the 2018 film Ophelia.