Kelly Rutherford made an appearance at court in Monaco yesterday, where a judge gave her a two week visit, in Monaco, with her two children. (These photos are from Kelly’s many event appearances this month. Go here to see photos of her outside court.) The next ruling is scheduled for November 26, and as that’s the final ruling it’s thought that the judge will modify her custody agreement with her ex, Daniel Giersch. (That ruling will likely be written and should not require a court appearance, according to The Hollywood Reporter.)
Kelly’s two children son Hermes, 9, and daughter Helena, 6, have lived with Daniel in Monaco since 2012 by order of a California court. (Kelly and Daniel share 50/50 custody however they live with Daniel as Kelly was instrumental in having his visa revoked and he is unable to travel to the US.) Over the years there have been various court orders, several courts relinquishing jurisdiction of the case, and a direct court order violation by Kelly when she kept the children in the US past their scheduled visit this summer. Daniel has indicated multiple times that he would not keep the children from their mother (despite her latest antics) while Kelly has consistently tried to cut Daniel out of their lives. It is thought that this latest ruling will hand sole custody to Daniel, as he is seeking, and give Kelly supervised visits.
People magazine reported that no decision has yet been made in the case and Kelly must return to the court tomorrow. However Kelly told The Hollywood Reporter that she was given a two week visit with the children in Monaco. She said “It was a positive outcome today. I get to be with the kids for a couple of weeks.”
Kelly went to court with her boyfriend, brother and lawyer. As opposed to her messy appearance in front of a NY judge, Kelly was polished in a tweed sleeveless dress with black tights and black shoes. She looked appropriate for court. (People has more photos.)
Kelly has generally kept her children off her social media accounts, and you can tell she’s showing a lot of restraint at this point due to her ex’s wish that their lives be kept private. (When they’ve been anything but.) Kelly posted the photo below of the children turning away from the camera. She also shared a sweet note that her son and presumably a friend wrote her about how they love her.
As for Kelly’s eventual fate in court, NBC had quotes from legal analysts who said that she has to stop being so negative and has to grovel, basically, if she wants to retain custody of her kids. Most legal experts say she is likely to lose custody and only be allowed visitation in Monaco.
“You never win this kind of case by being negative,” said James McLaren, president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, who practices at McLaren & Lee in Columbia, South Carolina. McLaren compared the risk of going negative in a child custody case to that in a political campaign: alienating the constituency you need to win. Rutherford, he said, “needs to be positive, and ask the judge what she can do to improve the situation and make this work…”
“The judge may not be that restrictive if [Rutherford] offers proper guarantees that she will not reabduct the children,” said Charlotte Butruille-Cardew, a Paris- and London-based international family lawyer. (Neither she nor McLaren is involved in the case.) She added, “The children should be allowed to visit the U.S….”
The odds of persuading a judge in Monaco to send her children back to the U.S. are not high. Says McLaren: “If you go to another jurisdiction and tell the judge his country is bad, that is not a position calculated to win.”
On The Today Show, they had yet another legal analyst who advised Kelly to apologize and say she was wrong. The chances are still high that Kelly will be left with only supervised visits in Monaco, however. Let’s turn the tables for a moment and imagine that Kelly was a man. Do you think a father who kept the children past a scheduled return date and said multiple times they should be only with him, not their mother, would get so many chances to stay in their lives? Would he be given a two week visit?
photo credit: WENN.com and Getty Images
Another story without rhyme or reason. Of course she should be able to spend time with her children. This is just another bizarre child custody situation, only news because she is somewhat famous.
Have you been following the story? I don’t think so or you wouldn’t say “of course she should be able to spend time with her children.” She illegally abducted them this summer and she’s a delusional nut who doesn’t care about their well-being at all, just winning. She has done everything she can to cut their father out of their lives even though he has been mature, patient, stable and generous to her. It’s hardly a story without rhyme or reason.
No, it’s news because of her shenanigans. She’s the one who made the whole thing “bizarre.”
Exactly! She’s lucky she got the two weeks.
Those 2 weeks have long been a part of the custody agreement. She got what she always had. She is trying to make it sound like a victory.
I agree with Nancy. Minus the cross borders component, this is your standard contentious custody case. Declarations that the other party is the problem, trying to win support from anybody who will listen, keeping the kids past your allotted time…..all very typical. I’m pretty sure I’ve read accounts from disgruntled women about having to share custody with a father who is doing the above. There was a piece recently (will post outlet when I remember) that pointed out that family court judges are awarded tremendous amounts of discretion. As a result the rulings can vary widely not just from judge to judge but from day to day. It all just depends on the factual issue he thinks outweighs the others – a subjective process.
I’ve heard of worse behaviour by men, who still have rights to see their kids.
“Rah rah rah WOMAN!!!”, eh Lisa?
This hasn’t been a ‘typical’ case. If there are other women who’ve done the same things she’s done, they’d be considered unhinged too. For those who know some of the history of what KR has done, then there’d be questions about whether she’s gone overboard to the point of creating a non-existent clause in which to publicize herself as she’s already gotten 50/50 (per her calculations).
Plus add in the 80-something times she’s said she’s flown out to see them (the number seems to keep increasing by 10 every several interviews) and the seasonal school holiday visits as well as the visits that Daniel pays for (airfare, residence, car service), so if we go by her calculations, she sees them nearly every week.
I’ve never heard of any other case in which POTUS, SCOTUS, Homeland Security, federal courts, (and possibly the Hague International Court), etc. have been called for help by a mother who already gets to see her kids at the very least 50% of the time (again, by her own calculations).
What more is she fighting for besides trying to get everybody to believe that the father of their children is homicidal, abusive, a terrorist, a drug and gun runner for South America’s criminals, a kidnapper, tax evader, a conman of visas and business, a habitual plaintiff in business practices, a tyrannical hoarder of children, etc.? Is there anything else she can throw at him? Can she connect him with ISIL yet or is that just a matter of time? She even hired a private eye (whom she stiffed and was sued over) because, iirc, he has a pool in his yard. What? Is she trying to say that he’s a drown-er of kids?
Her only battle seems to be against Daniel. Her actions haven’t been conducive towards a peaceful familial relationship for the children’s sake.
Maybe it’s time she stops wanting full custody and accepts that divorced parents have to SHARE the kids. Maybe that’s what ‘typical’ parents do, not the scorched Earth strategy she’s hellbent on doing.
Judgements in children cases can vary widely from judge to judge, absolutely. They have a wide margin of discretion, and will inevitably bring their own perspectives.
Which makes it all the more notable that in this case they are all singing from the same hymnsheet, and making the same sort of orders. Ones in favour of the father’s and against the mother’s position.
Of course she should have plenty of time with the kids, because they love her and it would harm them to lose her. The sad reality is that she cannot grasp the fact that the same applies to their father.
Sadly this is more like one of those cases where the estranged parent ends up hurting his/her child. For the sake of the children I hope that these are supervised visits.
It is a bizarre custody situation because she has made it so. If she hadn’t lied and gotten his visa revoked, they’d be sharing custody in the US. She played every dirty game in the book to get full custody, and this situation is the result. She’s even technically kidnapped them twice (international child abduction).
From another site, it appears this is a regular two week school break for the kids. She’s not getting anything special, just time she would have had anyway. What is different, possibly, is that they are staying in Europe. That may indicate that Giersch gets to hold all of their passports whenever she has time with them. It may also indicate that she’s not allowed to remove them from the France/Monaco area.
It’s not bizarre and news because she’s famous (as any C-lister could be). It’s because her actions have been bizarre and she’s made it as public as she could. It’s been a one-sided publicity stunt. Daniel keeps quiet and only his lawyers issue public statements, and as briefly at that.
There are so many high-profile divorces with more famous people who have kept their child custody issues private, thus their cases have not made as much news as Kelly’s has.
She’s gone on so many interviews, both on camera and in print, publicly called for help from SCOTUS and other federal courts, Homeland Security, POTUS, and did I hear something about trying to invoke the name of the Hague International Court or was that just wishful thinking/another crazy mouth diarrhea by her crazy lawyer?
Well, to be fair, this is a celebrity gossip website, not necessarily a news website. Yes, it is on this site because she is somewhat famous, that’s why most of the stuff reported on this site is here….
Also due to her bizarre antics.
Hells no.
It should be supervised visitation.
I don’t know what it’s like in the U.S., but in my country she’d have been charged over those abduction shenanigans, and best case would have gotten a suspended sentence. That she got through that scot-free and actually gets to be alone with the kids so soon after seems insane to me. She’s so clearly toxic.
‘Murica! Supervised visitation. She is still and always will be an abduction risk for those children.
I hope the visits are supervised and the father kept the kids’ passports. Does anybody in Monaco give a shit about this crazy woman?
I think it would be best for the children if they could have an ongoing, stable relationship with her IF she will stop her antics and help them accept their lives as they are. But I’m not sure she’s capable of putting their interests first. She is so selfish and delusional.
Given her history the court was extremely fair. Her ex husband was been nothing short of saintly towards her. If I was him I would insist on a mental health evaluation. She, in my opinion is unstable and I’d be afraid that she would abduct the kids.
Happily, we don’t know that that’s exactly what’s been ordered. Props to Daniel Giersch for continuing to put his children first and keep what happens behind the scenes between lawyers and the parties involved as private as possible. (Although, he’s sure had help. Sometimes the best thing you can do as the parent being attacked for {insert accusation of choice here} is to just stand back and let your ex’s actions speak for themselves.)
Abduction would be a best-case scenario. She’s unstable on a good day. I fear for the safety of those children. She despises their father and has already gone to great lengths in her attempts to try to prevent him being part of their lives. We’ve seen her antics and read her ridiculous and dramatic speeches. Murder-suicide prevention should be on the court’s radar.
Seriously? Some posters have said this situation is just a standard nasty custody dispute….and yet you say murder-suicide prevention is needed, which seems a bit alarmist.
A standard custody dispute does not involve lying to the State Department and getting slapped down by Homeland Security.
Some who have followed her behavior closely do worry about something beyond a simple custody dispute. She has legally kidnapped them at least twice. She went on national television and said that anyone who kidnapped her children would be an American hero. There are valid reasons why Giersch was holding the passports during her September visit, and he’s probably holding them now.
She has a boyfriend?
Run!
She is extremely lucky to have been given this time with her kids given everything she has done to try and damage her ex-husband’s reputation and relationship with their children.
I’d like to believe that someone was finally able to get through to her and make her understand how she was damaging her own case, but I still don’t trust that this is anything but pretense to get back in to the judge’s good graces so she can try and get custody moved back to the US after which all the shenanigans would start again.
My guess would be that until a final decision has been made, the standing agreement is still in place. Which means…two weeks a month visitation with her kids in Monaco while they are in the middle of the school year.
She needs a three week visit with a therapist
I think a father absolutely would get as many chances. From experience of my friends’ custody issues, there is no doubt in my mind of that. One of my friends son was kidnapped by his father for a few days, nobody would tell her where he was, the police ultimately brought him home, a few weeks later, the court still ordered my friend to turn over her son’s passport so that the father could take the for a trip that was approved by the courts prior to the kidnapping.
My experience is entirely through friends, but from what I’ve seen, Courts want to do everything possible to enable both parents to have relationships with the kids. It’s not about what the parent deserves, it’s that the kids deserve the opportunity to have relationships with both parents.
I agree that the fathers would get the same chances. I had a friend who was taking care of her great-nephew because the father had committed suicide and mom was a drug addict. My friend eventually went to adopt and it took over 3 years to do so. Mom was given every chance there was to get clean and take care of her son.
I don’t have kids. I say that upfront, because isn’t it sort of odd for a child to pen a note to his mother by her full name? I see mom was in a box on the side, but I just thought that odd.
ditto.
it’s the first thing i noticed.
Might have been because a friend of her son also was signing it. The mom part was from her son.
Also the kids send her snail mail stuff so they are very likely familiar with how to address envelopes with her full name.
To me, it just looked prompted – as though Kelly needed a prop for her Instagram page. The faces away photo also looked staged for the same reason.
But – I am a mardy old bag!
The wish list from Helena seemed faked too.
Did she lose all of her white clothes in a fire or why all the black recently?
Mourning…
She has finally stopped having the kids papped all the time and I assume that the court in Monaco was the one to finally tell her in no uncertain terms that she has to stop her constant media games.
She does seem unstable and on one hand I wonder about her being alone with the kids… however, looking at her smug face in all those pics I think that she brought all the manufactured drama because she is so desperate for attention, not out of her deep and abiding love for the kids or her claimed fear for them when they are with their dad. Harming them or herself would not bring her fame, which is really what she wants. A memoir – Fighting for My American Children – or continued interviews about her “plight” on the oterh hand, yes, I can totally see that. Ten she can continue her breast beating when the Monaco court limits her access more.
Said dad, by the way, is an admirable man based on how he has dealt with her madness. She has dragged his name through the mud, has accused him of pretty much everything from being a terrorist to subtly claiming that he is abusive and nothing he has done has shown him to be anything but a loving, doting father and one who has supported the kids having a solid relationship with her. She is a fruitcake and he comes across as a great guy, who has not engaged in the media game despite her continued provocations. Hope his next wife is a kind and intelligent person, he deserves better.
A while ago I started to feel that Kelly engages in all of these negative behaviours because she does not genuinely want to be a full-time parent to her kids in the U.S. She enjoys the media attention, revels in the sympathy she gets from some quarters, relishes lashing out against her ex-husband and people who would disagree with her, and loves exploiting her custody situation and her children (via pap walks, party pictures, and social media) to raise her public profile. But at the end of the day all of her actions seem contrived to limit her time and activities with her children while keeping up the appearance of “fighting for her kids” and “protecting their rights as American citizens.” She does not seem to actually enjoy being their mother and motherhood in general nearly as much as she loves playing the role of long-suffering mother whose babies were ripped from her arms and illegally deported to Monaco to live with a criminal.
If my take on her is correct, she is playing a very dangerous game. She and her lawyers have made far too many public statements disparaging the children’s residence with their father in Monaco, questioning the legitimacy of the Monegasque court’s jurisdiction over her and the children, claiming Monaco is a den of corruption and crime (some truth there but farfetched at best in regards to the family court system), and denying outright the children’s dual U.S.-German citizenship. Judges are not stupid, and Google works in Monaco too. Courts usually do NOT like it when litigants shade the facts to garner sympathy in the court of public opinion and openly criticize/deride the judicial officials who are just trying to do their extremely difficult jobs. While I doubt the Monegasque family court will completely terminate her parental rights, I do fear that her days of unsupervised visits in the U.S. with the children are over. I doubt she will ever have unfettered access to their passports again either, and I do not feel any amount of grovelling, begging, or more likely, threatening (this is Kelly we are talking about, after all) will help her convince the court that she can be trusted to peacefully and fairly coparent now. No judge in his or her right mind would ever want to risk giving her an opportunity to disappear with the kids or exposing the children to a greater chance of abduction by deranged pro-Kelly activists with American hero complexes. If she continues her self-destructive and alienating behaviours, the restrictions on her interactions with the children will only become more severe. She will get exactly what she clearly did not want from the very beginning of this madness: Daniel will be the primary custodial parent with significant control over the children’s daily life and long-term futures.
Incredibly insightful, BearCat. I think as the children continue to age and get out of their “cute little blond kid” phase, this behavior of herswill show even more.
Their son is 9 almost 10. She’s not going to be fighting to spend loads of time with a pre-teen. The idea of parenting two cute little kids was one thing. Dealing with them as they age and wise up? She’s not interested. Shooting herself in the foot to have the burden of serious parenting removed from her? She’ll become the “vacation parent” and be more than content with that.
I wonder if this two week visit is supervised. I remember she was corrected many times for being negative about their father when she was turning them over in court the time she abducted them. The children don’t need to be hearing her crazy for two weeks.
She’s still playing games by having the kids on social media.
She really thinks she’s fighting some war while all she had to do is be civilized in the first place.
It’s too bad the courts unable to fine her for all the stunts she pulls.
ikr? she’s relatively famous…why must she posts pics of her kids on her social media? I mean, i’m a mom and grandma, and I do post pics of my family..but were i famous and had somebody besides dear friends/family looking at my pics, i would not put pics up of people who had no say in the matter. it is so blatantly “please believe i love my kids” that i want to puke. you’re proud of your kids, as most parents are, but why do you think absolute strangers need to see their pictures? this doesn’t go for just her… i kinda shade any parents who are throwing their kids to the media wolves.
I actually do think a father would be given this many chances. I know ones who have.
That’s not to say I take Kelly’s side at all. She was entirely in the wrong. But if there are ways she can visit her children without posing a danger to them, the courts are going to try to find them, because this is ultimately about fairness to the kids rather than between Kelly and Daniel. In this case, supervised visits are probably the next step. She’ll lose those only if there’s no safe way for her to have supervised visitation, and even then there will probably still be phone and Skype contact.
Agreed. It amazes me how much terrible behavior is overlooked in the interest of maintaining the relationship with both parents.
Sometimes it amazes me too, but I’ve also seen what happens when a parent is absent and especially when the child believes that the custodial parent is responsible for the lack of a relationship. It’s so easy for children to idealize someone who’s never around, especially in comparison to a custodial parent who has all the rotten jobs like discipline and making sure everyone does their homework. When an older child who’s built up that fantasy ends up dealing with the reality of a parent who’s actually pretty dysfunctional, it can be a harsh blow and can take a long time for them to figure out if and how to have a healthy relationship with that person.
The children will want to get to know their mother at some point, whether that’s now or when they’re teens or young adults. As long as visits can be controlled so that Kelly can’t harm her children or abduct them, it’s probably better that they get to know who she is gradually. Hopefully they also have a therapist helping them figure out how to develop healthy boundaries, as she doesn’t seem to have good ones herself.
Yes, that’s a good point, I’m sure that happens a lot. But I have also seen friends going through divorces with men going through mid-life crises, having the kids lie to the mom about new girlfriends, having drug paraphernalia around the new house, not managing the kid’s chronic disease well, etc. And getting 50/50 custody so they can pay less child support. Makes Rutherford look pretty mild (up until she kept the kids in New York last summer).
So glad that the public and courts are on to her shenanigans! If you really want to get fired up read the unbelievably slanted ( in her favor) article in Vanity Fair. I’m mystified when anyone sides with this horrible woman.
Did anyone read the latest Vanity Fair article on this? Totally biased towards Kelly. I couldn’t get through it.
Vanity Fair? Bias? The devil you say.
When will they pull the plug on that magazine already. It’s only good for toilet paper right about now.
VF still has very good investigative journalism pieces now and then. I can do without a lot of its Hollywood worship and sycophancy to stars like T. Swift and Clooney, but I still subscribe.
Their recent Kelly Rutherford story, however, is a joke, and I have said as much on their FB page. Basic research and simple fact checking would have revealed that her versions of events have more holes than Swiss cheese, but it looks like their editorial staff were either all comatose or Kelly has serious dirt on someone important at VF or at Conde Nast.
“OK, Hermes…. remember what I taught you. When your daddy gets you to the airport, scream as loud as you can that he’s not your father and you’re being kidnapped. My phone number’s written in your shoe – make sure to cry a lot, too!!!! Fight the good fight!!!”
As much as I dislike her for the shit she’s done and no matter how much she deserves some bitchslaps by the court for it, I think this is in the best interest of the children. They love her and Giersch knows that. So I think the two week visit is a good thing. At least she finally starts to keep the children out of the pap shots. Who knows for how long. It’s a start.
But she’s still posting photos of them and their ‘love letter’ to her on social media, as if they’re some kind of trophy she’s won over her ex-husband. She just needs to stop it. She should act like she’s publicizing her war chest. She shouldn’t keep trying to re-image this as if it were a battle since it’s one-sided with nobody opposing her visits with the kids. Who is she fighting against? Daniel who wants her to be in their kids’ lives? The Courts who’ve never stopped her from seeing the kids? She’s so Don Quixote, but at least the latter was fighting for the sake of others in his imaginary battles.
I think by now I want to believe in the small improvements for the sake of the children. I think Giersch can give the children the stability they need and Kelly can’t do that much harm when she is only visiting.
You’re right though. It seems so much less obtrusive than when she was posing in white on every single red carpet she could find. She’s still exploiting them on social media though. She’s in an imaginary war and needs to stop.
Given her history I hope that she is restricted to supervised visits in Monaco only. That way she can’t pull any more crazy kidnapping stunts or risk another public hate/slander campaign against her ex. The most important thing is to keep the children safe and secure and also allow their father peace of mind that they are safe and secure! Everybody wins, including her as she’s prevented from escalating to something stupid enough to see her lose access to her children altogether.
Reeeally hope these are supervised and he has bodyguards trailing them. I don’t trust this woman at all.
And that Giersch is holding all passports.