A couple of weeks ago, Olivier Martinez sought and received a temporary restraining order on Halle Berry. The order protects Olivier and their son Maceo, who recently turned 13 years old. Olivier claimed that Halle got aggressive with Maceo and put him in a chokehold, and Olivier also claimed that Halle has always bad-mouthed him to Maceo, even allegedly calling Olivier a “white bitch.” There’s a hearing in a few weeks to deal with all of the back-and-forth between Halle and Olivier, but Halle has already made several statements and declarations in family court, claiming that Olivier is basically a bad and too-lenient father who hasn’t kept up with Maceo’s documented behavioral issues. Halle’s other kid, 18-year-old Nahla Aubry, also made a declaration to the court in which she defended her mom and backed up Halle’s claims about Maceo’s behavioral issues. Well, now Olivier has told the court that he wants Maceo to testify in the upcoming hearing.
Halle Berry’s ex Olivier Martinez says their 13-year-old son wants to testify in court. In new court documents obtained by PEOPLE, the French actor, 60, said that his teen son Maceo wants to address the court “to provide his side of the story” during the former couple’s upcoming custody hearings. Martinez said Maceo wants to openly discuss his custody preferences and the alleged incident from September. TMZ was the first to report the news.
“He should have the opportunity to have his voice heard regarding what he experienced that night,” Martinez wrote in his declaration. “If he is prevented from addressing the Court regarding these allegations, I fear that he would be dissuaded from reporting problems or potential abuse in the future.”
Representatives for both Berry and Martinez didn’t immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
Martinez went on to say that he anticipates Berry, 60, will try “to prevent our son from addressing the Court directly,” explaining that their son’s testimony will be “key to the Court learning the full truth about the events that occurred on September 26th.”
“I am the parent who wants the truth to come out. I am the parent who does not want to suppress Maceo’s voice,” he wrote. “To the extent that Petitioner attempts to prevent our son from speaking with a Judge regarding what happened, I fear this is an attempt to escape culpability for what occurred.”
Martinez also claimed that Maceo expressed concern over no one believing him over his mother.
“He explained to me that he has complained to therapists in the past about his mother being physical with him, and that these people either downplay or dismiss his concerns,” Martinez claimed. “He already feels that people are prone to take dismiss any concerns he has about Petitioner.”
On Oct. 1, Berry was accused by her ex-husband, Olivier Martinez, of being violent toward their 13-year-old son, Maceo. Martinez filed for sole custody of Maceo, claiming that Berry “physically abused” him in a Sept. 26 incident and alleging “other instances of abuse” in recent years.
I’m not saying that I’m Team Olivier, but I do think that Maceo should be allowed to testify, and I think his testimony should be given weight in the proceedings. I remember when Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were beefing for years over custody, Angelina wanted the kids to be able to testify as well, and Brad and the court mostly blocked them. If a kid wants to testify, let them. It’s up to the judge to decide whether to give Maceo’s testimony any weight. Is there a good chance that Olivier has coached Maceo? Sure. Is there also a chance that Maceo sincerely wants to live with his dad full-time and is willing to say whatever he needs to say to make that happen? Yes. But again, that’s for the judge to figure out.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images, Avalon Red.
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- Olivier Martinez, Halle Berry at the World Premiere of CBS Films Extant, California Science Center, Los Angeles, CA 06-16-14,Image: 552979819, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Photoshot – sales@photoshot.com London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Florida: +1 239 689 1883 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: Martin Sloan / Avalon
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- Santa Monica, CA – Halle Berry lets her hair down for an afternoon outing with her daughter Nahla in Santa Monica. The lovely ‘John Wick’ star wears baggy pants, sandals, and an oversized black shirt as her hair blows in the wind on their walk back to their car. Pictured: Halle Berry, Nahla Ariela Aubry BACKGRID USA 28 MAY 2019 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Beverly Hills, CA – French actor Olivier Martinez seen making a shopping trip to his local Bristol Farms and grabs his usual Baguette along with a few other items. Pictured: Olivier Martinez BACKGRID USA 6 APRIL 2020 BYLINE MUST READ: RMLA / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Beverly Hills, CA – French actor Olivier Martinez seen making a shopping trip to his local Bristol Farms and grabs his usual Baguette along with a few other items. Pictured: Olivier Martinez BACKGRID USA 6 APRIL 2020 BYLINE MUST READ: RMLA / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Beverly Hills, CA – French actor Olivier Martinez seen making a shopping trip to his local Bristol Farms and grabs his usual Baguette along with a few other items. Pictured: Olivier Martinez BACKGRID USA 6 APRIL 2020 BYLINE MUST READ: RMLA / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- -Los Angeles, CA – 20200406 – Olivier Martinez Goes Grocery Shopping -PICTURED: Olivier Martinez -PHOTO by: BauerGriffin/INSTARimages.com This is an editorial, rights-managed image. Please contact INSTAR Images for licensing fee and rights information at sales@instarimages.com or call +1 212 414 0207. This image may not be published in any way that is, or might be deemed to be, defamatory, libelous, pornographic, or obscene. Please consult our sales department for any clarification needed prior to publication and use. INSTAR Images reserves the right to pursue unauthorized users of this material. If you are in violation of our intellectual property rights or copyright you may be liable for damages, loss of income, any profits you derive from the unauthorized use of this material and, where appropriate, the cost of collection and/or any statutory damages awarded For images containing underage children: Be advised that some Countries may have restricted privacy laws against publishing images of underage children. Inform yourself! Underage children may need to be removed or have their face pixelated before publishing. Featuring: Olivier Martinez Where: Los Angeles, California, United States When: 06 Apr 2020 Credit: BauerGriffin/INSTARimages.com
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- Arrivals for the World premiere of Amazon MGM Studios ‘Crime 101’ Featuring: Halle Berry Where: Los Angeles, California, United States When: 10 Feb 2026 Credit: Faye’s Vision/Cover Images
Parental alienation is an awful thing. It can reach brainwashing levels. I don’t know if that’s happening here, but it doesn’t sound good that this guy is talking like this. “I am the good parent. She is a bad parent.” Yikes!
If the parental alienation excuse wasn’t used by abusive parents, likely there will be less abuse and less PA around.
Unfortunately – firsthand experience – PA is often used as a defence by abusers (see Brad Pitt) as a cover-up for what they’ve done.
Again, we don’t know if that’s what’s happened here – but if I were Halle I’d let my son testify.
No one should have an issue with a 13-year-old using his voice to express what happened, how he feels, and where he wants to live. Maybe he’s being coached; maybe not. Halle got her daughter who isn’t currently in the home and wasn’t present for the incident in question to write a letter to the court. Seems hypocritical to try to block the son from also speaking.
And honestly if Halle is smart it shouldn’t even come to this. She should allow her teenage son to live primarily with his father if that’s what he wants. At least for a while be the weekend and holiday parent. It might actually be good for the boy AND their relationship. But I suspect Halle is so concerned about public image and child support she will fight such an arrangement.
She may be concerned about parental alienation and further harm to Maceo. If Maceo truly has mental health issues, combined with learning disabilities, having an over-lenient parent who is trying to be a friend and not a father, can cause irreparable harm. Also, as someone noted above, having one parent say “I’m perfect and your other parent is horrible” is not good parenting strategy. In one of her earlier court declarations (in the prior custody hearing), she also said that Olivier was refusing to go to parenting classes and family therapy. It sounds like Olivier is firmly entrenched in believing that there is nothing wrong with Maceo and if he attends any type of intervention, it will be a concession that the kid has some issues that need to be addressed.
If Maceo has mental health issues, none of this is good for him, PERIOD. Having his personal issues laid out for public fodder and scrutiny, pitting his big sister against him, asking him to testify in court etc. This is not the kind of stress and pressure that a mentally unwell kid needs to be experiencing right now. Team Maceo always.
Whatever is around his issues, and his parents’s attitudes, he is old enough to voice his opinion and maybe even choose who to live with.
To be fair, neither of Halle or Olivier seem like winning the lottery, let the kid live with his father, she chose him as a father back then, and defended him.
AGREE BIG TIME!!!
They are putting Maceo in the middle of their fight. He just sounds like a normal 13 yr old acting out to me. I hope he has some kind of court advocate.
The court also needs to put all filings under seal. It should have been done already.
FWIW I do believe Halle and her son had an altercation. Maceo is 13 and thats an age of testing. Halle has had a lot of BFs, relationships and that may not rub Maceo the right way. Halle also has been rumored to be quiet emotional and have a temper. She recently remarried for the 3rd time and thats GOT to be rough on a kid. Of course Halle can live her life as she wants, but from all indications, Maceo is a Daddy’s boy. Daddy my have a grudge but he also may have a point. I really hope that boy is NOT called to testify. Its just not healthy to be caught up like that.
Wow. What do her past and present partners have to do with this? Do you actually know how she handled her relationships or her children? Maybe she only introduced them when things got serious. You’re making assumptions about people you don’t know. And what about his father’s relationships? Don’t those affect the child, too? This one-sided judgment is a misogynistic double standard…and disappointing especially coming from a woman (I assume you are one). We know nothing about these people-we’re just projecting our own biases onto a situation we don’t fully understand.
To be fair, we’re all making assumptions and hypotheticals here unless we’re Halle Berry herself or someone directly involved. None of us knows the full story, and I’m not pretending to and I dont think @SophieEster was either.
There’s no handbook for parenting, and Maceo has two parents who, from the outside, don’t appear to be co-parenting equally or effectively right now. But IF Maceo is neurodivergent, as some have speculated, then perhaps having a different living arrangement for a period of time could provide the stability he needs while things settle down.
I’m neurodivergent myself and grew up with a very strict parent who didn’t understand how to parent a child like me. Structure can absolutely be beneficial, but there’s a difference between providing structure and being overly strict. In my experience, being too rigid can backfire and cause a child to push back even harder.
I don’t like seeing the parents’ conflict play out publicly, and I’m not saying one parent is entirely to blame or that the other is automatically right. I just think there may be alternative living arrangements worth considering, at least temporarily, if they would better serve Maceo’s needs while things cool down.
I understand your point about the double standard, and I agree that both parents’ relationships and parenting choices matter. My concern is ultimately about what arrangement would be healthiest for the child, not about judging either parent based on their gender or relationship history.
Blindly guessing the gender of someone, admitting it’s nothing more than an assumption, then immediately criticizing this person by saying “We know nothing about these people-we’re just projecting our own biases onto a situation we don’t fully understand” is a wild level of hypocrisy.
I agree with MMRB, We don’t really know the ins and outs, but we do know that Halle likes to be strict according to the custody fight with Gabriel.
My sister loves his grown kids, but she clashed a lot with her older child. The girl even ran away from her because she is overbearing , bith of her children ended living far far away from their parents, still love them (due to her) and know they mean well, but my sister really is a handfull.
I suspect Maceo needs to be apart from mom to really understand, maybe he won’t get it now, but he will, and daddy olivier will have to make it work too.
Maceo was only present for her current partner after his parents split and the partner has been there for almost half Maceo’s life. His parents splitting may be something he still needs to work through, but you worded this like he was present for all of her relationships and marriages.
Olivier has had several high and low profile relationships before and after Halle, but of course it’s the mom who is the problem. Men get to have as many failed relationships/marriages, but that’s never viewed as an issue when it comes to his ability to parent.
She’s not married to Van Hunt (yet). He would be her fourth husband.
I would hope that Maceo has his own lawyer and voice. I went through this earlier this year with my ex wanting full custody and my 14yo was able to express what he wanted to his own representation and she spoke up for him in court. I don’t love HB, and I’m neutral on OS, but ultimately the kids deserve to be treated like people and if his home life is that toxic, he deserves a voice in where he lives.
Agreed. He should have his own representation.
I hope Maceo has a court appointed special advocate that interacts with him & his therapists independent of his parents.
I hope so, too. California is very progressive that way, so fingers crossed that they’ve already assigned him an advocate.
“…………….their son’s pediatrician and psychiatrist decided September 21 that he should not take medication at this time.”
So is the doctor saying Maceo did not need the medication his mother was advocating??
A mess.🙁
This whole thing feels very familiar to me as a child of two people who used me as a cudgel against each other for many years when I was around Mateos age. I don’t know what happened but I don’t think either parent is actually fighting FOR their kid right now.
I don’t know what the medication is, but meds can have side effects. My son had ADD and there were times when we took him off of it for periods of time, like over the summer when he wasn’t in school, to give his body a break from them and see how he did. I don’t know what was happening here but I don’t think it’s that unusual for doctors and parents to do that. It’s a process.
Surprised there isn’t an assessment ordered by the court–at 13 the minor can be manipulated or be quite independently minded and the court appointed assessors (social workers, therapists or like) are experienced and can sort through this. Not sure what California law is on this but the best interests of the child should be the primary focus. Nahla’s statement was not written by an 18 year old–no 18 year old uses phrases like that. The truth of this situation is probably somewhere in the middle and neither parent sounds stellar.
Yes, Enza, came here to say exactly this. There should be an independent assessment by a qualified, court-appointed assessor. If that can’t happen, then if the Court is inclined to hear from Maceo, it shouldn’t be in open court – what a circus and what pressure on the poor child! In my jurisdiction, when judges decide to hear from a child directly, they interview the child with just the court clerk present and then report the gist of what the child said in very broad terms to the parent and their attorneys. The idea with proceeding this way is that hopefully the child feels able to express themself more freely.
California Family Law attorney here. I’ve never practiced in L.A. county but it’s pretty universal that family court finds children testifying in court anathema.
IIRC in the Pitt mess Maddox wanted to testify as a near adult and that never happened. At least Maceo has no younger sibs to influence but I could see tabloids pitting him against his sister who is an adult or some other abomination.
Hopefully the Judge will order a full custody evaluation via the Court’s investigators; a Special Master (or Parenting Coordinator) and appoint an attorney for Maceo completely separate and independent of EITHER parent.
That can take 2-6 months in complex cases. In the Pitt mess AJ never asked for a RO. When Brad refused family therapy etc. from the Special Master and was ordered to have supervised visits initially I knew AJ was telling the 100% truth about what he’d done and now we know she didn’t tell the half of it.
What will be tricky is what to do about the Restraining Order application. If there is any neutral evidence that Mom physically abused the child it should be Temporary Custody to Dad with supervised visitation for Mom pending further evaluation etc.
Kids don’t ‘testify in court’ at 13. They may speak privately with a judge, they can get appointed a court representative, or they can speak with a therapist who has special permission to give an evaluation to the court. 14 is the general start age at which a child can express opinions which are taken into consideration, but not necessarily granted, but again, they aren’t generally allowed in an actual courtroom. It’s handled privately away from the parents. If this is an accusation of child abuse, it should have been reported to CPS for them to do an investigation and present the findings to the court. Court ordered individual or family therapy is a common tactic as the judge needs info to see if either parent or parent’s lawyer is coaching or coercing them. It seems they already work with therapists, although many can’t and won’t discuss their clients in court, when there are high conflict custody cases, there are usually already court recommended therapists in place for this purpose.
So for me as someone with a narcissist abusive ex who has been in a high conflict custody situation , I’m sensing some bs in this filing. It is accusing all their therapists and evaluators of dismissing what a child says arbitrarily. Now, not all therapist are created equal and I’ve dealt with crappy ones, but if a child EVER says one parent physically abused them it, the therapist is legally obligated to report it to cps or police. They could lose their license if they don’t tell authorities they suspect a child might be being abused. With custody situations like this, there is often a small grain of truth that narcissists like to blow out of proportion. It’s also easy to get a child to side with the parent that allows certain behaviors and freedoms over the other more regimented parent. Courts and therapists know to watch for this too. That being said, physically restraining a child who is acting violent would not be considered child abuse. Not saying that is what happened, but from what I’ve read in both their filings seems to indicate this might be the grain of truth as to what happened.
Another indicator is Halle wants to maintain 50/50 custody and retain decision making authority which is their current custody order. Olivier is asking for the more extreme sole custody. Which is really hard to get. But often one side will ask for the most extreme thing to look like they are compromising to get what they really want which might just be removing Halle’s decision making power. It sounds like their son has some mental health needs or learning disabilities and Olivier doesn’t agree with a treatment plan. Getting rid of doctors and therapist plans always seem a bit suspicious, but my ex loved to argue about things like that. It was a power dynamic issue because he always wanted to assert his authority over me and our child and it was a financial issue as well because therapies are expensive and he didn’t want to pay half. And a 13 year old is going to side with the parent that doesn’t drag him to all these appointments and gives him the freedom to act out or not take meds.
Unrelated, but the resemblance just made itself clear to me – Olivier looks like a long cigar ash.