This interview was actually published last week, but it’s new to me and I wanted to talk about it. I also wanted us to talk a little more about Kelly Rutherford’s bizarre interview with The Daily Beast, which was mentioned in our post yesterday about her latest court move. Here’s what Kelly told The NY Daily News’ Confidenti@l about her custody battle. She is seriously lacking in self awareness.
Kelly Rutherford… tells Confidntia@l why she turned to the media for help throughout this “crazy” ordeal.
“Well, in all honesty, I’ve been forced to do that,” she tells us at the Children’s Justice Campaign event in NYC.
“I’ve had no other choice. I don’t know how people do it that don’t have that. The only thing I’ve had is that on my side, which is a very scary thing I think for most parents to realize,” she continues on Hollywood turning positive awareness to her case.
“I think by my coming out and speaking openly about it – and this has happened in a lot of celebrities where they don’t come out and speak about it because it’s your personal life and it’s not fun to talk about. ”
“I’d much rather have my life in a different place,” she admits.
“But the bottom line is, you know, people need to realize that this is going on. I mean this is happening to everyone because people get divorced for many reasons. It doesn’t even matter what the reason is, as long as the kids are protected and they are put first. “
If Kelly didn’t go to the press, if she didn’t try to smear her ex from the start, and maybe if she didn’t continue to bring this up at every turn (even going so far as to suggest that someone should kidnap her children, by some interpretations) I’m certain she would have another outcome. Maybe Kelly wouldn’t have her kids with her all year, but she’d at least have them this summer already. This is like the classic fable of the sun and the wind trying to get a man’s coat off. Once you start fighting with your ex in a custody or divorce battle it’s a zero sum game. Kelly never quite seemed to learn that despite how poorly it’s turned out for her.
Also, in Kelly’s Daily Beast interview she portrayed the origin of her relationship with Daniel Giersch as some kind of nefarious plot in which he schemed to land her for her fame and money. She claimed that Daniel saw her at a cafe where she was a regular and that a waitress pressured her to contact him.
There was a waitress there who pressured me for weeks to go out with this man that she knew. I just remember she had a foreign accent and she was married to a Middle Eastern guy and her kids were in Kuwait. I think her name was Carla. She said this German man had spotted me at the restaurant and wanted to go out with me. She said he was super cute. She handed me his business card and said how great he was and how I ought to call him because he really wanted to go out with me.
Kelly said that Daniel seemed like a Playboy but that she ignored her instincts, essentially, and got caught up in a whirlwind romance and ended up pregnant. It sounds like Daniel spotted her and really wanted to get to know her. I mean, check out how alike they look. They’re like two peas in a pod. Of course he was attracted to her. This sounds like a romantic story to me.
photo credit: WENN.com
Please, he had more money than she and she had no fame.
Has-been f-list golddigger.
OMG!!! That top pic is HORRIFYING!!! Melanie Griffith’s face makes me want to cry.
I cringed, no joke.
Totally agree. It reminds me of The Devil’s Advocate when the other women turn into demons and poor beautiful Charlize Theron looks so pure in comparison.
who was her plastic surgeon? I guess with her fame and money she can afford the best?
Melanie Griffith’s whole life has involved plastic surgery. She had to get her face reconstructed when she was a kid because she was mauled by a lion. Her mom and former stepfather were crazy enough to think that living with big cats was safe for the family.
And how has going to the media impacted the court’s decision? It hasn’t. It won’t. And did the waitress slip you drugs? No? Then you still had free will. And the waitress’s origins mean nothing except to show your bigotry
IKR? What does the server’s foreign accent have to do with anything? Or her husband and kids in Kuwait?
All part of the big foreign conspiracy to steal her kids from ‘Murica that exists in her tiny brain
I guess those evil furriners were conspiring to take her kids away before she even had them. Damn, they’re good!
Seriously, I wondered if I was being too hard on Kelly — and then I read the court document someone linked. Wow. That little stunt she and her lawyer pulled to get Giersch deported really blew up in her face, huh?
And the name, Carla. Karla was the Soviet spy in John LeCarre’s Cold War novels. As long as we’re borrowing plotlines and characters.
The evil furriners rhetoric is particularly bizarre given that her first husband was Venezualan. It’s not like she’d never met anyone who was from another country before.
She’s trying to connect him to terrorism which was vaguely implied in his visa revocation I think. In my opinion.
@Lilacflowers I remain convinced she’s borrowing cable tv plots. Ever watch ‘Royal Pains’ ? Remember Divya and her unplanned child? Remember the weird mother and the ‘leave the child with us’ storyline?
So she lacks imagination, and recycled a Royal Pains story arc for this interview–lifted it nearly whole, so far as I can tell!
And, as I said on the last thread, I bet if we looked hard enough we’d find the source of her ‘Furrin’ waitress, kids in Arab country, cause ‘Murrica!’ storyline!
Did he had plastic surgery, before she got pregnant with her first child? I googled him and saw pict of very different man, much older and with tiny eyes.
One of the photo agencies misidentified a guy who attended an event with Rutherford as Giersch. That was a different person.
@Celebitchy…Thanx. I was wondering about that.
…at this point I just wonder how crazy she’s going to act when she loses. She’s set up all the cards that they can only really fall against her and upon her. This woman is gonna lose her mind when she doesn’t win.
The important question is when the cards fall will they fall on her face? Will the resulting face be that which is currently Melanie’s face?
Seriously Melanie WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? I know you have mirrors.
Seriously she looks like the Duchess of Alba. OW.
Melanie has mirrors sure but she also has tons of booze and drugs too. Her face is part plastic surgery nightmare and part ‘rode hard, put away wet’
She’s delusional And self serving to the point she’s effecting her kids lives with her antics. she needs to be stopped. I don’t really know anything about her ex but he seems to be dealing with the situation with class. She is even more crazy to think she’s putting her kids first.
“check out how alike they look” Huh?
I assumed she meant that in relation to how attractive they both are.
There are some people who are subconsciously attracted to folks who resemble themselves because of narcissism. There is an old fable called Echo and Narcissus about this.
Unfortunately she’s sounding more and more like a crazypants the more she talks. She reminds me of a friend’s mom, who I suspect of having actual mental issues. My friend didn’t have an easy time of it as a kid and even as an adult keeps her at arm’s length because the crazy can be overpowering.
Since we’ve heard exactly zero from him, it really amplifies her WTF is wrong with you status.
THIS b*tch is CRAY. Where’s my tranq gun?
“I mean this is happening to everyone…” – yup, every divorcing woman accuses her ex-husband of horrible things, deports him, asks all kinds of weirdos to kidnap her children, hires illiterate morons for lawyers, lies in court and screams ‘Murica as a counterargument to everything. Sounds about right.
There are so many holes in that waitress story that I don’t even know where to begin. Sigh..
Seriously, I already thought she was looney tunes and despised her actions, but the “it’s happening to everyone!” comment really seals that deal.
And the idea that she was forced to go to the media is so ridiculous. As is this guy chasing her for fame and money, considering she really has neither!
I think she’s talking about joint custody and that she honestly believes women should always have full custody. Which is really sad.
Yes, this has happened in every divorce in Hollywood. You just hear story after story about someone having their visa revoked and moving to Europe with their children, leaving the other parent in hysterics over their children being overseas.
Oh wait, that’s only one story that we hear about constantly because one looney toon won’t shut up about it.
She
s so egotistical. It sounds like she thinks that he set this all up to destroy her. Like this is his master plan at work. He set her up. He’s been working to destroy her since the cafe…
She’s nuts
The best thing in this whole clusterfudge are her incompetent crackpot lawyers.
F this B, seriously. I think everyone knows what she was doing with how she described this waitress, etc. She is a total piece of crap.
Uhmmm… what? So someone (a foreigner with a foreign husband and kids who live in a foreign country) pressured her to go out with him? Was it a setup? A plan to get her pregnant and take the kids away from her from the get go? Is this a case for Mulder and Scully?
I know I’m interpretating a lot into her words, but she makes it so easy.
Yeah. I was trying not to comment on her waitress story. At this point she has put so many words out there that I no longer believe it is possible to misinterpret. ANY meaning you choose to take will just about fit.
What is wrong with this woman? Has she got no loved ones who can tell her to shut up? Is she ignoring someones request for her to pipe down? I am dumbfounded that she hasn’t twigged that running to the media because ‘Merica isn’t helping her cause. Surely this constant need to go to the media with every detail is not helping her and most certainly isn’t helping the kids.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the judge becomes tired of her and she ends up losing custody due to her foolishness.
HORRIBLE trio on top! Is that what the kids come to when they visit mama? Yikes! They would rather be raised by wolves. Why did they break up after the two babies?
Based on the fact that she said Daniel seemed like a Playboy but that she ignored her instincts and she hired someone to follow his every move to find evidence, it seems he cheated Or she thinks he did, and she went cray.
don’t you think if there were any evidence he cheated that she wouldn’t be shouting it from the rooftops? she had him followed for 1300 hours before the guy sued her for non-payment. if there was anything he had done, she would be all over it.
I didn’t say he did… I said based on what she said it SEEMS (that’s what she is implying)… or she THINKS (but didn’t get the evidence). I have been following this case for years and I have been tired of posting about her stupidity. She needs to go away and stop exposing her kids to this media circus.
whenever i read this drama unfolding, i keep wondering if she thought that she’s living her real life like Lily Vanderwoodsen
Hmmm…. Let’s see. Cute German businessman asks waitress to do him a solid and pass his card on to pretty woman across the room. So verrry nefarious!
Did he even know she is an actress? What is the likelihood that he actually watched Gossip Girl or whatever other show she was on back in the day? Was it 90210 — or am I confusing her with Jenny Garth?
Melrose Place. But honestly, I’m American and a woman and watched Melrose Place when it was on, and I didn’t remember who she was. She’s not THAT famous.
This woman has a serious victim complex. She is acting like her ex husband is some stranger who kidnapped her kids and the courts handed him custody. She didn’t have to do anything, she could have kept this custody issue to herself. The court isn’t going to change the decision based on the media. It is about what is best for the kids and they use the evidence in front of them.
Right. And if she wants to ensure the kids are safe and protected, she actually increased the odds by ensuring that her ex- would lose his visa to visit the USA, which resulted in the judge arranging for the children to live in Europe with him most of the year. Of course I’m assuming that Monaco has less gun violence than the USA as well as nationalized health insurance. So maybe this is all a crazy twisted plot in Rutherford’s mind to make sure those kids almost never come back to the USA. In which case she may be on the brink of success.
Yes, he was totally a gold digger who was chasing that Gossip Girl money. That’s why she’s declared bankruptcy and he – despite presumably having similar legal bills and having had to relocate internationally – is paying for her plane tickets, apartment, and car during her custody visits.
Girl bye.
Yesterday was the 15th. Wasnt that a court date for them? Am shocked that her camp hasnt released anything yet. Prolly not looking good for them, But when has that ever stopped them tho.
The court date has been postponed until July 9 when the judges will make a decision on who has jurisdiction. Meanwhile, Daniel has a court date set in monaco for June 22. Hopefully he gets having to send the kids to NY for the summer put off until after the July 9 hearing. I wouldn’t trust that CA judge not to pull a fast one after getting the kids to America, since he’s the same one who tried to grant Kelly temporary custody without Daniel being able to refute her statements or give evidence of his own.
She is unstable, desperate and utterly full of it. She did NOT have to go to the media. She wanted public sympathy and I hope this too ends up shooting off her foot. BTW that pic of Kris Jenner looks super-imposed. I loathe this woman more every time I see her phony face!
So now she’s claiming an international conspiracy by scary foreigners to lure her into marriage and get a couple of babies out of her for the express purpose of having them raised in Europe so they can be denied their constitutional rights as Americans? It’s scary how much crazy is bubbling there.
I feel so sorry for her ex, there is no reasoning with unreasonable people.
Yeah, that foreigners story is crazy. And all the little details she put it in to make it sound so ominous and conspiratorial just highlights her craziness in telling this story.
……………
Is it just me or does it seem like she doesn’t talk in complete sentences and thoughts? Kinda reminds me of the way Sarah Palin speaks.
Exactly what I was thinking. It sounds like an international conspiracy. She knows a hell lot about a waitress she met years ago. This woman sounds crazier every time she opens her mouth.
I’m quite sure Giersch hasn’t been perfect in this custody battle, but FFS… Rutherford not only told the whole world that someone should kidnap her kids and bring them back to the US (totally unharmful for those kids, because it would be a patriotic act) but now she is hinting some international conspiracy?!?
I’m looking forward to the 4th of July. She might come up with a very special perfomance of “bring them home”.
Sweet Jesus, what has happened to Melanie Griffith’s face??? She looks like some lab creation from Jurassic Park. Melanie…just stop. Stop. Right now.
tks for that comment. made my night
If I were a Family Court Judge (I’m not) I would make her continued visitation rights contingent upon regular attendance at a psychiatrist’s office and reports on her therapy.
I hope Monaco does get jurisdiction. That might slow down her craziness. Family Court really needs to do a psych evaluation on her. She’s always been bizarre in this case, but she’s becoming more so. Is she planning to flee the U.S. with the kids to another unknown country? Is she becoming a danger to them in other ways?
The court already noted that the older child gets upset when she badmouths his dad. She risks losing him if she continues doing that, because in a few years he will be old enough to say he wants to live only with his dad and the judge will take his wishes seriously. I wonder if she has any idea what she’s in for when those cute little kids become – teenagers! Uncontrollable, mind-of-their-own, won’t-take-no-you-know-what teenagers! She probably hasn’t thought that far ahead, but she may not like what she reaps from what she has sown.
Yeah, I have a feeling she’d be TOTALLY OKAY with her ‘Murican kids not living in ‘Murica if they were living with *her* in a country that has no extradition treaty with the US.
I saw on another site in the comments that in 2014 the American Bar Association wrote an article using her case and saying that just because you don’t like a judgement doesn’t mean it’s unjust. I should go look for that. Should make interesting reading.
Especially as the bulk of discipline complaints filed against attorneys involve family law.
Please, find us that. I tried looking for it but nothing came as a result. Must be quite an interesting reading…. of course, stating the obvious, which this woman seems to be absolutelly incapable of reach!
One of the first things you learn as a lawyer is that the media is not necessarily your friend. There is a reason why most lawyers order their clients not to talk to the press or make any public statements: clients are usually completely entrenched in their positions and how right their side is and how evil and wrong the other side is. As a result, they can say some really asinine things. The lawyer’s job involves seeing the forest AND the trees, managing the client’s expectations by getting them to see things realistically and not as they would like them to be, and figuring out a way to zealously advocate for the client within the boundaries of the law and ethics. Lawyers’ jobs are infinitely easier when we do not have to constantly police what our clients are saying to others!
Kelly absolutely had a choice to leave the media out of her incredibly contentious divorce and custody battle. Her lawyers chose not to muzzle her (or themselves) and have seemingly decided to fight everything out very noisily in family court and in the court of public opinion. Now the proverbial chickens are coming home to roost. Personally, in light of her recent histrionic behaviour and spurious legal claims (e.g., her kids were deported), I believe it is only a matter of time before her custody and visitation rights are curtailed or subject to stricter conditions than ever before. And she will have no one to blame but herself.
Ironically, I somewhat jokingly tell many of my immigrant clients that it is just as easy to fall in love with a U.S. citizen as anyone else (since marriage to a citizen is often one of faster and easier ways to get a green card). But Kelly’s case illustrates the flip side of that coin: be careful whom you marry. When they married, Kelly may have believed Daniel was the love of her life and they would never, ever divorce, but their marriage ended anyway. She knew or should have known that marrying and having children with a non-U.S. citizen whose habitual residence is Monaco carried some risks, especially when it came to matters like custody and visitation. She assumed the risk, and now she does not like the consequences. It is a tough lesson to learn, but if she had a brain and a heart, she would realize that she does not need to drag her children, her ex, the lawyers, the courts and judges, and everyone else into this drama.
I feel sorry for her because I fear that no matter what happens in this case, she has already lost the war. Her children will Google themselves someday and see all the vitriol and hysteria she has spewed. They will learn that she and her attorney conspired to get their father kicked out of the U.S., possibly forever, with dubious allegations of criminal and terroristic activities. They will read about how their father reasonably feared their mother might abduct them or that some crazy person would kidnap them for her so he would never see them again. Somehow I doubt her kids will remain blissfully unaffected by it all, but it will be her fault for not handling these intensely painful issues in calmly and in private.
He was living in the States, though, wasn’t he? She’s the reason he now lives in Monaco.
She made it harder on herself, but what else is new? Feeling sorry for her (and glad the court is impartial) is the best response.
He lived in Monaco for several years before he met Kelly. It looks like he only had a temporary US work visa while they were married and may never have gotten a green card (which would not necessarily be illegal and was likely done so he was not subject to US tax on his worldwide income).
I’m wondering if he could sure the state department or whichever responsible agency for not conducting a thorough investigation and not giving him a fair trial?
(Wondering that in general, not just this case)
I think she has made herself look terrible with this custody battle. Her ex has been extremely generous, paying for her travel and accommodations to come and see the kids quite often and allowing her to have them in the summer and she has done nothing but slam him. The kids are settled there. She should put them first and let it be, enjoying her time with them as much as possible and not badmouthing their father.
Ahh to be the land of the sane again. I read the Daily Beast story and commented on it, nothing outrageous just that I didn’t believe her story that he was using her for fame and that he wanted a PR agent etc. Mainly because he has been so silent and there are so few photos of him. Basically, the kind of stuff that is said here – that she is a bit nuts. Anyway, this crazy person jumped all over my comments, said he was clearly a sociopath, and i needed to get a clue … the same person attacked every person who posted on the story. I guess they don’t moderate at the Daily Beast?