As we reported yesterday, Kelly Rutherford has lost a federal custody battle for her two children: son Hermes, 8, and daughter Helena, 5. Kelly’s legal argument centered around her claim that, by ordering the children to live with their father, a German man residing in Monaco, the custody judge had deported them. The federal court disagreed, stating in part that “the children have not been deported… [they] retain their United States citizenship.” The children live with their father, Daniel Giersch, who was deported from the US in 2012 and is no longer allowed to travel there following a tip to the State Department from Kelly’s former divorce lawyer. Giersch is supposed to apply for another Visa but reports indicate that he has not followed up.
This may not be Kelly’s final legal option. Her friend, ABC News anchor Dan Abrams, indicated in an interview with Good Morning America yesterday that Kelly can still appeal to the California court system (Abrams previously wrote an editorial advocating for Kelly’s children to be returned to her and has appeared with her on other talk shows.) Kelly’s lawyer also stated that she would continue to appeal. She told Fox News that “What we don’t understand is why they had to be sent to a foreign country. It’s an unprecedented cause and we’re not giving up…we will never give up.”
In her pre-taped interview with GMA, Kelly expressed her dismay at the ruling and stated that “Parents know — everyone knows it’s not right.” She also said that she cries frequently and that she misses things like “being able to bring them from school and pick them up from school, dress them, hug them, smell them.” It does sound devastating.
Kelly has a new interview with Hello! Magazine, and she expresses many of the same sentiments. She’s really hurting and upset. However she also claims to have taken the high road.
“I feel empty,” she said of decision.
“Just because kids don’t vote and pay taxes doesn’t mean they don’t have rights to be raised in their own country,” she shares exclusively in a sit-down interview at The Mark Hotel in New York just days after the ruling. “It’s a humanitarian issue. It’s a constitutional issue.”
“It doesn’t make sense. How did this even happen,” says Kelly. “At the end of the day, I’m a mother and a citizen of this country no matter what I do for a living. What I’m asking for is help.”
The actress fears her celebrity status may actually have hurt her in this case. “It’s a big misconception especially because of the character I played. Lily van der Woodsen and I had a big difference in money,” she explains of her wealthy, entitled Gossip Girl role. “[Daniel] just sued me until I had no more money.”
Kelly had to file for bankruptcy and her dwindling funds make it difficult to see her children, she says. “I go to visit them as often as I can afford to go, about once month to every six weeks,” she continues, having just returned from seeing them in France a few days before. “The longest I went was eight weeks because I couldn’t afford to pay my rent.”
Despite her heartbreak, the star’s number one priority is her children. “I want my kids to look back on this time and say, ‘Thank god mom didn’t say horrible things about dad and took the high road,'” she concludes. “Eventually they’re going to read about this and I want them to be healthy through this. They look to us to be the rock always and I take that responsibility seriously. Overall they know they’re loved.”
Here’s the thing, her children don’t have just one country, “their own,” as Kelly puts it, they have two. Kelly’s children may have been born in the US but they are also German citizens due to their father’s nationality and they are free to live anywhere in the EU. This is not a “humanitarian” or a “constitutional” issue, this is a custody issue. Her kids are living with their family, including their father and paternal grandparents, in Monaco. This is the only way they could see their father unless they personally traveled to him. I don’t doubt that it’s very hard for Kelly to deal with not seeing her children, but I do think she’s totally full of it.
According to People Magazine, during her custody battle, she “stated on the record that Daniel was dealing drugs and weapons in South America, which under the Victory Act is considered terrorism. Just the accusation is enough to revoke his visa.” Again, her own lawyer also tipped off the State Department. I get that she wants to have her children with her, it must be horrible not to see them, but she has not been taking “the high road” at all. Also, I read that her ex was ordered to pay for her flights to and from Monaco. I guess that’s not the case or that it doesn’t cover all her expenses.
It must be terrible to be away from her children, but she made her bed. I don’t have buckets of sympathy, because she essentially had the father of her children deported. She obviously didn’t want him to be able to see his own children, and now she’s in the same situation. What goes around and all that stuff. She seems to be just as manipulative as Lily Van Der Woodsen.
I agree. It reminds me of a meme I saw once, “Karma’s only a bitch if you are.”
“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” – Confucius
@NotaSugar, Shambles say, I like that.
I like that!
But she can still see her own children – a situation very different from the one she tried to orchestrate for the father. Reading that she didn’t even bother to tell him about the birth of his own child, after she had him deported, puts her in the ‘zero sympathy’ category for me.
I have no doubt that if she was given full custody, he would never see those children again.
Mich, great point. As a lot of people were saying on yesterday’s KR thread, she has the means to relocate so that she can still be close to her kids. It seems like this is more about winning to her, which is icky.
Mich, Your last statement is absolutely correct and essentially her game plan. And is exactly the reason the judge made the decision for the children to live with their father.
And I call bs on she’s broke because she can’t afford to pay rent and fly to Europe every six weeks. She sees those kids every six weeks because her EX pays for six or nine trips per year for her. The judge ordered that at the same time he gave the ex physical custody, plus she has them all summer.
Eventually the kids will be able to decide where they want to live, perhaps by the age of 12. If they want to move back with her they will. She’ll just have to wait until they are allowed to make that decision. In the meantime she should just be a good parent.
Seriously! That part wasn’t a stretch at all. SMH!
The photos of them during happier times are so sad. I can’t imagine dealing with such a horrible mess.
Is it just me or does her ex look super young?
That’s what I thought too 0___0
I believe he is 5-10 years younger than she is.
I thought he looked younger than her too. This is the first time I’ve seen a photo of him.
He looks like he’s in his early 20s!
I seriously thought he was her son. Yikes.
He’s six years younger than her…but he does kinda look like a college kid. He’s forty, she’s forty-six.
They divorced like 8 years ago though so he;d have been younger in those pics
He does!
Why do judges keep siding against her? Is it because they see she’s trying to alienate the kids from their dad?
She hid her pregnancy with her son from him then essentially exposed some shady business dealings of his and got him deported. HER plan was for him to NEVER see his kids again and not even know about the birth of his son. She started it, as they say.
Wow. What a crazy mess. I wonder if there is truth to her accusations?
She apparently might not have even exposed it. The quote says that just accusing him is trouble.
@Tooly
Exactly. He was accused and deported. There is nothing more to tell–otherwise she would be all over the news with how he’s a criminal. Wasn’t she saying yesterday that she didn’t accuse him of anything illegal (when TECHNICALLY her lawyer did)?
Maybe he is really not a good guy? I dont know her deal but it does seem really extreme for a U.S. court to send U.S. children to another country. Whether mothers should get preference, as is usually the case, I dont know but sending away from the mom who essentially was raising them (I believe), that is intense, does not seem right.
Agreed. Perhaps he really is a drug and gun runner and she was and still is afraid of him and for them. I mean, they deported the guy – does that mean nothing??
If there was honest to goodness proof that he was a drug runner and arms dealer, I don’t think there’s any way Kelly wouldn’t be using that in all of her interviews now and the judge would not have sent the children off to live with a high level criminal. It says right in the article above that an accusation is enough to revoke someone’s Visa and deport them.
I can’t remember where I read it but I read that she actually was making all those drug stories up and that’s why he’s never been charged and no one ever really pursued the stories. Because he wasn’t an American citizen just the rumor of drugs and guns could get him deported and Kelly and her lawyer knew that. The fact that the stories were unfounded and started with Kelly probably caused the judges to side against her because she’s conniving and a liar. There were also a lot of stories about how awful she was to her first husband (as he was dying). Maybe the judge took that into account as well.
A part of me thinks that when she has her kids she does actually say negative things about her ex to try and turn them against him. This would be a good episode of Law and Order: SVU
I think she is so manipulative and dishonest. Going on Fox News and implying that it will harm her children to be raised in any country other than the US. Constitutional and human rights issue. Ugh. Lady, you got your ex kicked out of here in a ploy to have sole custody, and it backfired. Now, move to France and be near them, or stay here and visit them when you can. But stop whining and wasting everybody’s time with your distortion of the facts. High road. Please.
Do we know for sure that the guy wasnt into some shady business? I ask because recall afew years ago when Denise Richards was making allegations about Charlie and everyone was shouting “parental alienation” at her? She was accused of exploiting Charlies sketchy past for custody, with everyone claiming he had been clean for years. Afew years later, turns out she WAS right even though she couldn’t prove it at the time.
The timeline could be something like…..Kelly begins to suspect something dodgy into her second pregnancy. They break up for whatever reason. Kelly tries to “protect” newborn from father by not telling him or including his name in BC. Divorce filed and custody fight begins. Kelly has no proof but knows this guy is shady. Decides to protect kids by whatever means necessary. Loses court cases and keeps story alive in the media because she genuinely has no faith in the guy.
OR maybe your theory is correct. I just don’t know how we as third parties can be so certain about such a heartbreaking situation.
That’s what I want to know. If he was truly involved in what she accused him of then I wouldn’t want my children around him either.
I’m suspecting that maybe the “shady” business was something that may be illegal in the US, but not in Europe/Germany or wherever his business is. That’s just me guessing, without anything to back it up–besides the fact that he was deported, but didn’t face any charges, wasn’t arrested, didn’t go to trial in the US or Germany for drugs/guns/fraud. I don’t understand how he can be kicked out on evidence of *something* illegal (so Kelly says), but that evidence isn’t enough to even START a trial, or get him thrown in jail for 24 hours or something????
To me GNAT’s theory seems more probable due to the fact that the courts tend to usually favor either a mother or a 50/50 arrangement. If they sided with the father this time (I know it technically is 50/50 but not exactly), who isn’t an American citizen, was deported and is not a celebrity (all those things would usually go in favor of Kelly) it has to mean that they have some dirt on her and not on him. Charlie Sheen is an American and at the time of the custody battle, people still had a wrongly positive impression of him. In this case – either we or a court don’t have any particular reason to favor him. He is some German dude who has children with an actress. But it’s him, who keeps winning and not her, despite all those accusations. I’d like to hope that judges don’t make their decisions out of thin air like that and check all the possibilities, trying to rule in the best interest of the children.
I find it interesting that Halle Berry tried to flee the country and move to France in order to alienate Gabriel Aubry from his daughter and Rutherford did something completely opposite but with the same intent and they both failed. To me the only healthy solution to this mess would be if Rutherford tried to move to Monaco herself and be close to the children.
I just wanted to point out that Monaco is a tax haven. I do find a bit strange that a German citizen lives in Monaco.
The way she treated her first husband makes me 100% side with GNAT on this. Kelly Rutherford is just not a good person. And the fact that she’s whining to the press now. Like wow lady, give it a rest, you are not making yourself look good.
Well, I don’t know for sure, of course. I just have the impression from what I’ve read that the accusation alone is enough to get you deported, and nothing ever came of the accusation. No arrest or anything. And I think if she really had anything on him, she would be constantly talking about it. She never mentions any wrongdoing on his part. But, you’re right, I don’t have any proof or anything. Just a feeling.
@GNAT
Me too, GoodNames. If she knew that he was in some illegal stuff, for real, we’d be hearing about it every time we turned our tvs on.
Deportation is not like the justice system. You don’t have to be proven guilty. An accusation is enough. And I am with GNAT and Virgilia; I think she did it to get her children to herself and it backfired. Apparently the judges in the custody case don’t find enough merit to her accusations to keep the kids from someone who from all accounts is a loving father.
She views those children as possessions, and thinks they’re hers. No one else’s, and not people in their own right. That’s what I see when I read about this.
@ brabra
I don’t think it’s strange, since Germany and Monaco are both part of the EU, and Monaco is full of people from across Europe who live there. As you mention, it’s a tax haven. So it’s an attractive place for a lot of people. Another article also mentioned his parents have a house there, and he and the kids live with them.
@brabra (love the conchords reference!!)
Monaco is a lovely place and if you can get a better tax arrangement, why not?!
GNAT~ first thanks for the comment yesterday, it’s been a long road but I’m still here! (:
She doesn’t know how to really put her kids first. She is still so stuck on “this isn’t fair” and unfortunately what’s fair and what happens in custody cases aren’t always the same.
She needs to stop fighting and make a new game plan. The courts aren’t In her favor, they aren’t going to be. At this point I kind of think her kids are better off with him, and I don’t say that lightly.
The comments that resonated with me the most yesterday were from those who wondered why she wouldn’t move to be with her children. Actors relocate to their film/tv sets all the time whenever necessary and it seems like the exception not the norm for someone to stay exclusively in one place.
She needs to have a job there to relocate there. Immigration laws would make it difficult for her to just take up residence without a job.
Please, she would have no trouble finding a job.
Um, what would an English speaking, American, B or C level actor do in MONACO for a living? Or even the South of France. Not exactly a big English theatre-tv production centre. Not all professions are easily mobile. And what language you speak also matters.
It’s not easy or even possible to just pick up and move anywhere and work. I’ve actually lived and worked in 5 countries and went to public policy school and know literally hundreds if not thousands of international aid workers, journalists, business people, diplomats, etc., and can say for sure from personal experience and that of hundreds of people I know, it isn’t easy to get good paid work everywhere you go. The spouses of a lot of diplomats and aid workers, for instance, have a hard time on many postings in terms of not being able to find work etc. It’s a difficult lifestyle. There’s a reason that the diplomatic corps has trouble retaining staff long-term. It isn’t easy to establish yourself in a different place. Look at home many immigrants struggle to get decent jobs. Look at how many professional immigrants – lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers, etc. – drive taxis or deliver pizzas for a living. For YEARS!
Also, yeah, don’t get me started on immigration. It’s not easy to just pick up and get papers to live and work anywhere you want. Don’t be so naïve.
But she is not some unknown, third world country immigrant. Let’s be honest, if she took all the money she spent on her US house, lawyers and smearing of the children’s father, she could afford relocating to some smaller town close to Monaco border and live quite comfortably, while traveling to USA for work. She’d see her children much more.
I also think that level of difficulty greatly depends on context and your will to move somewhere. If you were a pretty well of American actress and you had to move to be closer to your children, would it still be impossible? Very, very hard?
I come from a country that is traditionally immigrant: there are more people of Croatian origin outside of Croatia than in, and I think we were right behind the Irish in the 20th century statistics of european nation which is most common to be immigrant-people had to leave their children, spouses, families behind, leaving without any knowledge of the language and culture…they sacrificed so much just to give their families better lives. Today, in recession, young mothers are leaving their babies behind and going to work in EU countries as maids, just so their children could live normally. Is it right? No. Is it easy? No. Is it better than watching your child go hungry? Yes. So, I really do think that it all comes down to perspective: Would adjusting to European country be difficult? well, let’s say yes, although I think that kind of thinking is pretty ignorant (my, she’d step outside US, into a hellhole! *sarcasm*). Would her career suffer? Yes? I’m not exactly sure what is she doing right now, so I don’t know how much of a career she has. Would she see her children regularly, what she claims is the most important to her? Yes.
To a mother who really cares, that would be all that matter.
Not going on Fox and spouting nationalistic propaganda which just makes her sound incredibly mean or stupid and ignorant. One day, her children will be reading this.
Whatever is correct. If Rutherford were to move overseas she would be broke within 12-15 years. The tax situation alone would be a nightmare and her B/C list acting jobs would dry up. People say she can just fly to the US to work. This assumes work equals several two week sets of filming. On what planet? Taking meetings, auditions, callbacks, rehearsals, pre-production, traveling to locations, filming, press, photo calls, photo shoots, interviews, radio, brand endorsements, appointments with agents, publicists, agents, attorneys, financial advisors… The industry would be understanding at first but soon get fed up with scheduling things around her – good excuse to find other up and coming actors for roles she used to get easily.
whatever, having actually lived on both sides of these countries I will tell you her situation is not nearly as dire as you and she are making it out to be.
It’s almost like she should have considered that before she got him deported on a fabricated allegation!
It’s not necessarily that simple. If the kids live in Monaco, they have immigration laws that might make it difficult for her to move there. For one thing, they have income requirements, and if she’s truly bankrupt, she definitely doesn’t qualify.
Exactly!
Monaco is the size of a small town. Rents in Nice, France right next to Monaco are quite reasonable. And you can come and go as you please; there’s no actual border, just jump in your car and drive there.
That’s what I was thinking, MP – she doesn’t need to live IN Monaco (which is pretty hard to do I think) but could easily find something nearby in France.
She doesn’t seem to do more than a few tv episodes a year – even if she got on another series, she could spend several months out of the year in France.
Rich people bankrupt is not the same as regular people bankrupt. For example, most people who declare bankruptcy don’t usually then immediately go summer in the Hamptons.
Also those lawyers are getting paid somehow – lawyers don’t usually work for free. Who is paying these lawyers? In my opinion, Kelly Rutherford has some associations and activities of her own that could use some explaining.
KR probably already has access to a nice apartment in Monaco courtesy of some friend she met in the Hamptons, she still has all her designer clothes and jewels, and again through her wealthy friends she is part of a world where things are ‘arranged’ for people.
If she wanted to live full time in Europe, that could very, very easily be arranged.
I’m wondering what she does now….does she live in the Hampton’s? I looked at her IMDb, and it seems like in the past few years, she’s taken a few guest roles on tv shows, once or twice a year. She hasn’t done anything yet this year. What does she do all day? How does she support herself? Does she get alimoney/child support?
On Real Housewives of NY, she can be seen in the background of Hamptons parties sometimes!
Kelly Rutherford is an elegant, attractive, and sociable woman who is mildly famous.
My guess would be that she has something like the situation Padma Lakshmi had going with her boyfriend who was a 72-year-old billionaire. Every year or so he would ‘loan’ her a million dollars, and then when he passed all the loans were forgiven in his will plus he set up a trust fund for her kid.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2105916/Billionaire-Teddy-Forstmann-gives-trust-fund-lover-Padma-Lakshmis-daughter.html
For KR to be able to legally claim bankruptcy and yet live as luxuriously as she seems to, there has to be another large source of ready cash available to her.
@PennyLane
I wish I were that broke. Jesus.
Speaking of the high road, its funny we don’t hear from the father. Abrams is in it for the ratings-he’s remembering that guy whose wife took his kid to South America, then died, and her parents kept the kid. Lots of media.
She doesn’t even get it. The arrangement is the way it is because she got her ex’s visa revoked. Technically, they have joint custody. However, her ex is prohibited from entering the US (at least he was – I’m not sure if the restrictions have been lifted). She can travel freely. Thus, as long as the kids resided in the US, the custody agreement couldn’t be honored because their dad could not have access to them. But if they live outside the US, Kelly is free to visit them as she wishes. Hence, letting them stay with their father is the better way to honor the custody agreement.
I hate to sound mean, but she did this to herself. If you’re going to accuse a person of terrorism, you’d better have some solid evidence to back it up. Now we can’t be sure, but it seems like if her ex really was involved in something as high-level as weapons trafficking, something probably would have been done about it. Her ex is a fairly well-known person in the communications world, so if he was involved in that stuff, I find it hard to believe that he’d get away with it for so long.
If Kelly wants to make things right, then why not publicly recant the allegations? Come out with it and say, “I lied, my ex is not a terrorist.” Maybe then you could assist with getting his visa restored and working out an arrangement within the US. But she’s too spiteful for that to happen.
This!
“If Kelly wants to make things right, then why not publicly recant the allegations? Come out with it and say, “I lied, my ex is not a terrorist.” Maybe then you could assist with getting his visa restored and working out an arrangement within the US.”
great idea, but I wonder if the US gov’t would care?…and frankly, considering what we’ve seen of her behavior, she’d likely never do it.
!00% agree. And I think people should remember that custody cases get really ugly. My husband’s ex accused him and all of his family members of seriously disgusting things. Custody evaluators deal with this kind of crazy all the time and look for evidence that the child is uncomfortable, neglected, etc. Kelly decided her accusations within this case weren’t enough and let her lawyer take it a step further. This is the worst case of parental alienation I’ve seen and thank goodness the judge recognized it. Kelly needs to keep her mouth shut. Stop saying it’s a constitutional issue when everyone knows the kids weren’t deported or kidnapped and stop saying you’ve taken the high road when you’ve told the public many shady things you’ve said to your kids and it’s public knowledge you helped get your ex deported. She just keeps digging deeper.
If he was doing the things that he was accused of doing that resulted in his deportation, she would be insane not to bring that up in the divorce. I don’t really hold that against her (unless of course it was completely fabricated— I don’t know the veracity of those statements).
Cannot. Stand. Her.
There is a plague in this country: not taking responsibility for the consequences of our own actions. We have victimitis. People file lawsuits if their coffee is too hot, if they get fired for doing a terrible job, if they fall down on the sidewalk because they can’t walk in high heels, if their kid breaks an arm on your trampoline, or if someone posts a bad review about their business on Yelp. One woman is even suing the families of kids she killed on their bicycles! This woman played a high stakes game with her kids’ lives and lost. Maybe they are better off with their father.
For laughs:
https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/top-ten-frivolous-lawsuits
Watch the HBO documentary Hot Coffee and you will have a different opinion about “frivolous” lawsuits. I do agree that they exist, but it serves corporate interests to tout the most egregious examples as the norm, when they are not.
I love Hot Coffee! It was so eye opening about the woman who spilled the McDonald’s coffee on herself. So good.
Thank you!! I’m so tired of people citing that case and “frivolous” ad naseaum!
Once you view that documentary these same deniers need to have a big cup of
STFU!!
Amen. Lots of stupid lawsuits in this world but the coffee case was not one of them.
Yeah, the McDonald’s coffee lady had every right to sue, given the extent of her injuries and that the temperature was well above the limit. From what I remember, all she wanted was her medical bills paid and for them to abide by the temperature rules, she wasn’t looking for millions. And people continue to use her legitimate case as an example of frivolity.
I was just thinking how funny it was that was the example of frivolous lawsuit when if you actually research the case it was a completely justified lawsuit with surprising results.
Probably not the best example in this argument.
I think there are frivolous lawsuits, to be sure. But when people are truly harmed by the actions of another, they should have the recourse of suing for damages. This does not mean suing because your coffee is too hot.
A lot of the 1 per cent would love it if they could trample on the rights and well being of the 99 per cent with no repercussions. They could sell shoddy products, tainted food, etc. and just shrug their shoulders because they have all the money and power.
I agree. I haven’t seen Hot Coffee, but human behavior is not nice and has to be kept in check, IMO. Lawyers are necessary to that end because if there are no consequences anyone legitimately wronged has no recourse. THAT would be terrifying.
The coffee case involved a woman who sustained major, third degree burns over six percent of her body. She was hospitalized for eight days and required significant skin grafting.
The coffee wasn’t just ‘hot’, it was scalding to the point that contact with skin could cause instant skin, flesh and muscle damage. It was McD’s policy to keep it that hot because it prolonged ‘freshness’ and the woman in the case was not the only person severely injured. Discovery documents showed more than 700 injuries- many as serious as the one described above – in a 10 year period.
McD’s knew it was causing serious harm and didn’t care. The jury was disgusted and awarded punitive damages equaling two days of coffee sales to try to get the point across that something had to change.
I obviously should not have mentioned coffee. There have been many copycat “hot coffee” (hot tea, hot chocolate) lawsuits since the one in which the woman was badly burned. Others have sued because they now think they can make money, not because they were horribly injured. These cases have gone to court and then gotten dismissed.
I never said people should not be allowed to seek redress. I stand by my opinion that Kelly Rutherford is wasting the time of the courts, and that she refuses to take responsibility for her role in this disaster. I also maintain that there are many inappropriate lawsuits that have nothing to do with corporate interests. IMHO a woman who ran over other people’s children and killed them should not sue the bereaved families – but that is indeed her right and that is what she is doing.
It’s her own fault for making false accusations against her ex to have him kicked out of the country, if there was any truth to that it would have been further investigated and charges brought but there was not a shred of evidence to support those allegations. She and her lawyers knew the allegations alone would be enough to have him deported and banned from returning. The judge recognised that she was doing everything she could to alienate the children from their father and ruled to ensure they grew up with him in their life.
Monaco is a lovely, wealthy, crime free place, she makes it sound like they’ve been banished to a war zone. They’ll be raised safely, healthily and happily there so long as the father does his job and by the sounds of it he’s a loving dad who has fought hard to stay in their lives.
If this woman was not so narcissistic, selfish and cruel she would never have created a situation where her children have to live in Europe. She had their dad banned from the US, my sympathies lie with him and their children.
I have been to Monaco and it’s beautiful – its sad that things got to this point and every child needs both parents but i agree with others in this post, she made her bed and what goes around comes around.
She hole that she’s determined to dig for herself is getting deeper and deeper, it will not end well for anyone involved as she is the type to do something stupid like kidnap them and run off somewhere.
Just so sad that she has to be like this.
She’s lying about not being able to afford to visit. The court ordered him to pay for it at least six times a year. He is not trying to block her from seeing the kids besides in the summer when they live with her. The fact that he apparently hasn’t been ordered to pay her legal fees means either 1) she is as capable of paying as he is, since that’s the basis on which it is decided or 2) the judge thinks she is the source of the problem and is violating court orders and/or is engaging in frivolous legal actions.
She’s also trying to appeal to people who are convinced that the USA is the only decent place to live in the world, the same ones who think this is the only free country in the world.
Note to self: do not have children with a German who deals drugs and guns in South America.
A judge gave him at least partial custody, she fabricated that ridiculous story.
Note to self: do not have children with a woman crazy enough to make up stories about me dealing drugs and guns in South America.
Much accurate note. 🙂
Note to self: do not have children with vindictive, spiteful, lying C list actresses.
I sure would suffer not seeing my children everyday! But to me it’s quite funny that she bemoans the fact that her children are raised in MONACO! What a hellole 😉
I thought Giersh had to pay for her travel, so what does she mean that she couldn’t see them because she didn’t have money?
Six times a year. That’s every two months. I assume she wants to see her children more often than every two months. If she wants to see them every two weeks, she’s paying for the other three round-trip flights and accommodations in a two-month period. That’s just a two-month period. Add that up over a year, minus when she gets them on vacations, and it is probably pretty significant costwise for someone who hasn’t had many acting gigs in the last two years.
I think she gets them for the whole summer in NY though, doesn’t she? So it’s really like 40 weeks out of the year or so that she has to travel to see them. If he pays for 6 trips, that’s every 6-7 weeks.
More importantly, children have a right to know both their parents. Too bad she doesn’t get that.
She acts as if her children weren’t sent to live in some third world country by themselves. They’re living in Monaco with their father. They are as much European as they are American.
Monaco is not being sent off to live in Iran. You married a foreigner, made his life hell, and it’s come back to bite you in the ass. One of life’s little lessons that I’d guess she isn’t going to learn.
On a side note, ex-husband is adorable. It’ll be interesting to watch Kelly’s head explode when he remarries and there’s a stepmom around.
I find him incredibly good looking. I need to get to know him.
I kept hoping for the same with Gabriel Aubry and Halle Berry, is never happened 🙁
Yeah, that’ll be…interesting to see in both cases.
Any sane woman would stay well away until this custody mess is sorted.
This is her mindset that they have the right to be raised in their country?! Well, well, well…
It goes to show she really wanted to alienate the father of her children by getting him deported. She really thought he would have not part in their lives. One word: karma.
ps: Why doesn’t she move to France?! She can get acting roles in Europe, non?!
“Giersch is supposed to apply for another Visa but reports indicate that he has not followed up.”
He should at least apply for another Visa. I think the fact that he hasn’t should be taken into consideration by the courts. If he reapplied and was denied, that would be one thing. But he isn’t even trying to be the bigger person. Both parents sound terrible in this case.
His lawyers pushed for Kelly and her reps to help him in visa re-application more than once. They got no feedback.
(Kelly and her people were probably seeing their plan to get rid, working as intended)
But now he has primary custody of the children, Kelly ad her people are now suddenly pressing for him to re-apply.
He doesn’t have primary custody though. It is 50/50. But because he can’t enter the US, the kids are always in Monaco. He doesn’t need his ex to help him reapply.
A terrorism accusation permanently bars a person from getting a U.S. visa, even if no criminal charges have ever been filed. U.S. immigration law even bars family members of suspected terrorists from getting visas and entering the U.S. There is no point to filing an application for a visa if the State Department will just deny it outright.
if the children wouldnt suffer i would laugh about this because she tried to do the exact same thing to their father and it backfired.
this US is the best country in the world is also laughable, h er children even have more rights in Monaco and im not only talking about child labour in the USA which is still a huge problem.
Firstly, it’s not a right to be raised in the country you hold citizenship of. If it was no one with children could ever live overseas. Such an idiotic statement.
If she actually gave a damn about her children she would have stopped fighting years back when the writing was already on the wall, when she still had millions. Monaco is not a difficult country to gain residency in, she could have lived there for at least the majority of the year, seen her children daily, had them living with her half the time. She chose not to be with her children in order to fight it out with their father some more, despite everything suggesting she’d lose.
She’s not broke, she’s still prancing around in clothing that costs far more than a return flight to Monaco. I suspect she filed for bankruptcy not because she truly had no other option, but because she thought it would rebalance the scales. Giersch can’t get a visa, now she most likely can’t get a long-term visa either. But she can still enter the country, so that changes nothing.
I don’t doubt that the legal fees have been very expensive, but she was crying broke last summer too…wearing designer clothes at an interview at some event in the Hamptons. I’d like to be that kind of broke.
I am taking the opposite view here. I don’t know the details, but high level: the courts gave full custody to the father, the U.S. deported the father, so the kids have no legal option other than going with their father to live in Monoco or wherever they are outside of the U.S. The mother lives here and can’t see her children. It seems like a travesty of justice to me. I don’t believe she “got him deported” – she reported something he was doing, it was investigated, and he was deported as a result, but unless she framed him he did it all himself. She wanted to protect her children from him. The big question as I see it is why was full custody given to the father in the first place? Was it just a matter of being out-lawyered?
He doesn’t have full custody–they have custody 50-50. He has to pay for her to come visit their kids six times in the year, and she gets them in the summer. She’s acting like she hasn’t seen them since they left almost three years ago.
If his family lives in Monaco they are most likely very wealthy. I’m sure that has a lot to do with the outcome of the case. And you can’t just get someone deported. If he was breaking the law he should be deported.
That’s not how immigration/ visa granting bodies work.
The US is particularly notorious for deporting first THEN investigating. However, an accusation of weapons running/terrorism WILL get you permanently banned from the country and no amount of re-applying will have you re-issued with a new visa unless you have serious money + connections.
What’s keeping her from moving to Monaco to live near her children and see them more often?
Also – she was able to make one visit last 8 weeks! I’m sure there would be many parents, divorced or otherwise, who would love to take 8 weeks uninterrupted to spend with their children.
I understand it’s not the same as having them close all the time, but visiting once a month for extended periods of time AND having them all Summer – it does sound very equitable.
ETA – It seems for the cost of her legal expenses, she could easily get a travel visa to be near her children for extended amounts of time. She needn’t live *in* Monaco to be near – it’s a very tiny place, she could live/stay in the South of France and still see them daily.
She needs to get off her soapbox and be quiet. She’s lying because she absolutely did say and do deplorable things to her ex-husband. Saying it’s a humanitarian and constitutional issue is just ridiculous. What is she? An expert on the constitution now? Obviously not.
There are millions of men and women that has to co parent with an a**hole. I’m sure most of them make it work, or tolerate, the situation they are in.
If Kelly would have just tried to be civil in the beginning she would probably have her children on a regular basis. They would have probably be at a more tolerant place in their lives and maybe able to actually have civil conversations about the children.
Unfortunately she had to try to eviscerate this person. Now it’s almost been nine years and she’s only made the situation worse.
It’s time to suck it up and at least try to come to some sort of peace with her ex so she can try to work out some sort of arraignment so she will not miss out on another chunk of her children’s lives.
I’ve never had much sympathy for her and have never believed the stories she put in the press to defame her ex. In a nutshell she made her bed. She got the father of her children deported in hopes that it would mean full custody for her and he would be left out high and dry, and it blew up in her face. She’s right, one day her kids will see this and my gut feeling is they’ll be better for having the time with their dad that she obviously didn’t want them to have.
I agree, and I’m mainly always on the sides of the mothers………I also find it telling that her ex isn’t going to the press and spilling it all. Which he could’ve done to make himself look really sympathetic (regardless of whether or not he is or isn’t). We could’ve had an Alec Baldwin 2.0. She should be glad he’s going to work, and not writing a book about how men always get the shaft in divorces.
Lots of U.S. citizen children are de facto deported when their non-U.S. citizen parents are deported or barred from reentering the U.S. Kelly is not special, and her attorneys were idiots to bring this lawsuit. The case law for several decades now has been that children in this situation are not “deported” from the U.S. because they continue to hold U.S. citizenship and can return to the U.S. at any time…subject to custodial arrangements obviously.
I am an immigration lawyer IRL, and I have had government attorneys flat out argue in deportation cases that if the parents want their U.S. citizen kids raised in the U.S., they can give them up to CPS. It sucks, but it is the law.
These are the consequences of her actions. She brought this on herself. She gambled with her kids and she lost.
The losers are the kids.
“It doesn’t make sense. How did this even happen?” Um, Kelly, you chose to marry and have children with a non-US Citizen, then got him deported and tried to take away his custody.
I hate how she’s playing the victim in all this. Most of it is her own doing, and the more she cries about it in the media, the less sympathy anyone feels for her. Her kids are the ones suffering.
Maybe just maybe if she had listened to the judge when they were going throught the divorce and act like a diva and disregard the orders of the court, like putting her stbx husband’s name on the birth certificate, not following the visitation orders, not informing him of the birth of his daughter, just being downright nasty like he has to rights to his own kids, none of this would be an issue.
She did this to herself…..when awarding her ex the right to live outside of the USA, the judge stated that the courts found her actions towards her ex regarding his rights with his kids troubling and felt that she would hinder his time with the kids (like she had pulled beforehand) if the children resided in the USA.
So yes the courts were aware of her actions and warned her again and again, she didn’t listen and paid the price of being one of those women who seem to think they’re Mary Mother of Jesus Christ.
An episode of SNAPPED had a woman who got pregnant with a weekend summer fling while going through a divorce (she also let people around her think it was the exhusband’s kid too) around 7 yrs of age she contacts her son’s dad who didn’t even know he had a child with her….father and son meet, father is happy (father is married with 2 kids now)
This mother is now pissed that her son’s dad wants to see him regularly she tries to keep him away, they go to court….farther gets standard rights, mother get upset, cries abuse, gets son to go along, son tells the truth nothing happened, bruise was just an childhood accident ….son’s lawyer brings up mom’s drinking and drug use and along with false abuse claims, she loses custody of son….
She then hires a hitman to kill son’s dad stepmom and half siblings …hitman was a cop thank God, but really just another woman who thinks that they solely can have their kids to themselves.
When I saw the photos, I thought her ex was her son… jeez she looks way older than him.
I’m curious: Rutherford’s divorce lawyer informs the State Dept. anonymously that Daniel is dealing with terrorists and illicit drugs.
They pull his visa.
Was there any investigation into these charges? If he’s investigated and found innocent–that the charges were bogus–could Kelly and her lawyer be charged with filing a false report? Lying to the feds?
An allegation is enough under the Victory Act. I read somewhere they’ll revisit his visa application in a few years.
In my country, not US, even a hint of terrorism means that that person is under constant surveillance – phone taps, observation, etc. I don’t know about US law, but if it is somewhat similar, I can understand that the US will deport a suspect with a green card before he/ she is brought to trial.
That this husband was okay with said deportation – there will be no trial. It seems he is happy in Monaco with his kids.
Terrorims is one of the things that seems excempt from: innocince before proven guilty.
here’s what bothers me. if you are truly concerned about the wellbeing of your children when they are in your ex’s care, you stay close to them. that’s instinctual. change your zip code, change your profession, change your lifestyle. its not convenient or easy, but if you want to see your kids on a regular basis (and be able to maintain a watchful eye), then you do it. that being said, I understand the feeling of blood thirst that often accompanies nasty breakups. but you have to get past it and try to regain your trust of your co-parent. and if you can’t, lets hope you have proof.
Exactly. Why doesn’t she move? She could could move nearby in France and take a normal peasant job to make ends meet.
I think people really jump to quickly on conclusions when they dislike someone.
No one really knows if she brought the allegations up. Interestingly, most of the people assume this to be true, while assuming that if there’s no proof that we was doing some illegal business then it means that he was definitely not.
And cute he is not. Definitely you never saw an interview with him. This guy said some strange things and comes across as a really awkward/creepy dude (proves nothing I know). Like he said in some interview that Kelly’s job was not good for the children and that if she had decided to have them she should also decide to take better care of them and that he decided to take the matter into his hands because obviously no one else was doing it. Control freak too much? Being awkward doesn’t make him a criminal or on the wrong, as disliking how she comes across doesn’t make it impossible that she might actually be right. This guy is filthy rich…in a game of power he would definitely win. I mean that we just don’t know and it’s impressive how people tend to side with him…Why did she decide to totally cut off from her life a multimillionaire, when she was pregnant with his 2nd child, when she could as easily divorce him and get child support?
“Why did she decide to totally cut off from her life a multimillionaire, when she was pregnant with his 2nd child, when she could as easily divorce him and get child support?”
Divorce would have entitled him to visitation rights.
Getting him out of the country for good with investigation pending would make it ‘harder’.
And this is with Kelly ALSO hiring a PI to investigate him.
The PI came up short, and subsequently sued her for unpaid funds.
This is likely who she is.
The same way she quickly bailed on her first husband while he was terminally ill. And did not even show, when he died a few years later.
No “in sickness and in health” for our Kelly.
Jegede I dislike her so much over that nonsense with her first husband and yeah I forgot about the PI suing her for unpaid services too. She’s a mean vindictive woman. She’s angry that things didn’t go her way.
Cause she’s vindictive. She left her first husband once he came down with a heart disease which he would not recover from.
And it’s been proven her lawyer brought up the allegations. I am guessing with her approval since why would her lawyer contact the State Dept. over it.
And being awkward does not equal creepy or a criminal.
She lost her court case because she was proven to be trying to conduct parental alienation. She wanted sole custody with no visits by her ex because she did not want him to be part of their children’s lives. She has no one but herself to blame for the situation she is in right now. And her ex has been super reasonable about everything involving the kids. And she hasn’t said anything about him or his behavior in her latest poor me interviews. She is merely now saying it is unfair to be a mother away from her children. She wants someone to reverse the decision because she wants full primary custody with her kids and no custody by her ex.
Why doesn’t she just move to Monaco so that she can be close to them?
“Just because kids don’t vote and pay taxes doesn’t mean they don’t have rights to be raised in their own country,”
This woman….
They’re MINORS! They CAN’T do those things until they’re 18 (or working, in the tax case). Again, it’s not the children that can’t live in the US. They are US citizens and can live there anytime they want once they reach adulthood and the custody arrangements are null. It’s that their FATHER can’t set foot in the US (thanks to her), and so to facilitate this crazy notion that these kids deserve both their parents in their lives, they have to live in Europe. She can visit them there (and does), but he can’t visit them in the US as he would not be admitted. This situation she’s in is all her fault and I have no sympathy. She didn’t get what she wants and now pitches a hissy fit to anyone who will listen. She makes me sick. Those poor children.
What a monster, How can anybody be this cruel? To constantly abuse that guy, she almost ruined him! She should be in jail.
this is an interview from him
http://www.theagencyre.com/2014/08/billy-rose-speaks-blipcard-founder-daniel-giersch/
I like it how he speaks about his children. It´s only about the app but you learn more about him than anywhere else.
I think he made a lot of money when he gave away/sold “gmail.de” to google.Inc.
You can not read very much about it.
I hope it`s ok I posted that link. I think it`s so sweet of him. And he has to have a lof of money when he can give his earnings from this app to charity.
Wow, he seems very reasonable.
She’s trying to make this into a nationalist issue to see if people will join her as it’s a matter that “hurts the United States” in its core. It doesn’t. As you stated, these kids have more than one citizenship and their country is where they are. If they lived in Bulgaria, it wouldn’t make them any less German-U.S. American.
I don’t doubt she’s in pain for not having her kids with her; but I do believe her biggest issue is having taken all the steps to have Giersch losing the custody of the kids and being deported and it wound up blowing in her face. I, for once, don’t feel sorry for her a bit.
Kelly might want to try to peacefully co-parenting with her Ex, instead of engaging in this never ending legal fight. THIS is WHY she’s bankrupt.
Who is she? I had never heard of her before this custody thing.
She says like her kids are being raised in Saudi Arabia or Congo or Sierra Leone.
This is Monaco she is talking about.
In the end it is not about any kind of patriotism but about her scheming. End of story.
So many people on here make such shitty comments about her but ya know…if ya’ll was in the same boat…you’d bet you’ll be fighting like a cornered rat to get your kids back. Regardless, of her “scheming” and “making her bed”……anyone who looks at this picture should know the heart of it is that she has been seperated from her two children since they were so young and i’m sure any mother can relate to this, that you would give your soul away just to be near them again.
Her ex husband, whom we don’t hear anything about, seems so far off…never hear that he makes the effort to bring them to the U.S. to visit their mother. Never renewed his visa so he can even initiate this type of relationship with his children’s mother. This guy has, in a sense, purposely sunk her into a large hole with debt, heartache, despair…..but I do hope that she will be reunited with her children permanently one day. That I wish her well.
I sympathize with her pain and fight to be with her children again.
You hear about him all the time, Kelly always blames him for her going against the judges orders and alienating his kids from him.
You also heard from her lawyer who had the state department revoke his visa without any evidence, which is also why he can’t renew his visa, which you don’t realize because you really didn’t bother reading anything about this than “My american kids live in France, waaah”.
Kelly gets her children every summer. Daniel funds 6 trips during the year to bring her to Monaco to see the children. If she wants to see them more often she is more than welcome to fund extra trips to see them. When Kelly had custody she refused to set up basic phone calls so that the children could speak to their father.
She needs to pack her bags an get her ass over there…there’s no way my I’d ever be away from my children!!!
People mention Kelly’s treatment of her first husband.. What did she do to her first husband?
“Kelly left her first husband Carlos Tarajano after he developed a very serious heart condition a few months after they married in June 2001. Her bags were packed, and out the door by the following January. They were to be featured on InStyle Weddings (magazine and television special) in Febuary. Carlos was surprised and upset that their wedding was still being featured because Kelly had already left. Instyle said Kelly assured them everything was great, and they were still together. Carlos died in 2004.”
From a commenter on lipstickalley
She married a Venezualan banker named Carlos Tarajano in 2001….six months later, she filed for divorce. A few months after they got married, they found out that he had a heart condition. That was what she left him for–he died in 2004. To add insult to injury, they sold their wedding pictures to InStyle–it was featured in their magazine in FEBRUARY 2002……these two aren’t even married, yet their pics are in a tabloid. Wife of the year, she is. And looking at wiki, she was only married to Daniel Giersch for a little over two years, had probably been with him for three years at that point…..they had their oldest kid a few months after they got married. Wowza.
Just google her first husband–wow was he hot.
She didn’t necessarily do anything to him; however, he got sick I want to say within a year of their marriage and she promptly divorced him. I have no clue her reasons so I don’t dog her for it, the way she acted in this case is my basis for criticism.
With these comments you have to wonder about her. What she says in the press are just that, words. The only thing that can shed any light are the court documents that the judge is seeing, maybe the judge saw something in her that did not like. Although, correct me if I am wrong they have a 50/50 custody arrangement. So, if she had anything to do with him being deported, to keep the children … that just sounds unreasonable. And, the whole line that the court deported her children … how can you deport kids with dual citizenship? I mean. Regular people go through similar situations and they are making it work, why can’t she or them?
I have to wander about her psych state of mind. She married men that are sick and then dumps them? Like a black widow thing? I don’t know, this whole story is confusing.
It’s baffling to me why she isn’t just trying to create a good life out of this situation for her and for the kids.
She may not want her children to be raised around an arms and drug dealer…? Lots of shady stuff in Monaco. And maybe she wants them in the US so she can continue working? I give her the benefit of the doubt. There has to be a reason the relationship soured. That can happen if she discovered things she didn’t know about him.
If he were a drug trading arms dealer he’d been arrested by now, don’t you think?
And where does she find these men? A Venezuelan banker? And a guy living in Monaco? My only advice would be to pick some all-American guy she can screen better.
The judge got it right (for a change).
France is a better place to be anyway for the kids.
It worked out best for all involved – including her in the long run (if she can see past herself).
…hopefully she’ll grow-up.