United Kingdom, April 29 -- Ian Somerhalder has told how he and Nikki Reed were left with an "eight-figure" debt following bad business decisions.

The Vampire Diaries actor has praised his wife for helping them return to financial stability after "it all came crashing down" due to "fraud", explaining things went wrong when he made huge personal guarantees to a bank for an unnamed clean energy company.

He told E! News: "I retired from acting seven years ago.

"I left an insanely lucrative career in television after financial upheaval from building a business that I didn't build properly. And due to fraud, it put my wife and I into an eight-figure hole...

"Eight figures is a hard hole to climb out of. But Nikki and I did it. You know, sh...