As we heard earlier this week, Daniel Giersch has obtained an injunction against the American publication, Vanity Fair, in his native Germany. Giersch filed suit in Hamburg, citing the violation of his privacy rights under German law following an October article in which his ex wife, Kelly Rutherford, made several statements he claims are false. The article, titled “Inside Kelly Rutherford’s Brutal, Globe-Spanning Custody Battle,” remains available on Vanity Fair’s website. Vanity Fair has six months to respond to the injunction.
Giersch’s lawsuit was accompanied by a PR statement from his lawyers in which they seemed to indicate that additional lawsuits would follow. Giersch’s lawyer, Dr. Oliver Scherenberg, stated “Our client, Daniel Giersch, has had to repeatedly endure in recent years numerous assertions that were untrue and completely fabricated. This needs to come to an end, now. Our client has suffered significant injury to his reputation due to these untrue and defamatory assertions, against which he is now defending himself. The actions taken against the false assertions published in Vanity Fair are only the beginning.” Other outlets which have run articles highly biased toward Rutherford include The Daily Beast, People Magazine and MSNBC and ABC among others.
As many of you mentioned in the comments, Giersch really played a long game here. He gained physical custody of his children with Kelly: Hermes, 9, and Helena, 6, in 2012, when a California court ordered that the children live with him in Monaco. He waited years, until he gained sole custody, to refute the false statements about him in the press and he did it through legal means. Very occasionally his lawyer would give an extremely measured response to Rutherford’s behavior, but they did not respond to her many, many interviews and statements maligning him. Giersch also continued to state that he would promote Rutherford’s relationship with her children. All signs point to him doing that. Even after Rutherford abducted the children this summer by keeping them past their scheduled visit, she admitted in an interview following their return to Monaco that she was able to Skype with them just a day or two later.
Now that Giersch has sued Vanity Fair, he may go after additional news outlets or this may have achieved his objective. LillySue noted in our last story that Rutherford has been shopping a book. This is confirmed in a People article from April which states “she’s spreading awareness by writing a book about her ordeal.” Perhaps this was part of her plan all along – write a book and star in a Lifetime movie in which she’s a faultless American actress and devoted mom who fell in love with a nefarious German businessman, only to lose her kids and fortune in an international custody battle lasting for years. That’s the picture she’s been painting in the media, and Giersch is finally trying to show how wrong it is.
Photo credit: Getty and WENN
She can still write it without fear of lawsuits, as long as she changes names, details and peddles it as fiction. If she can write – or finds herself a competent ghost – it would be worth reading. (I’d buy it secondhand or borrow it from the library to keep her from getting a penny more than the publisher’s advance.)
I’d have to torrent it. And I’d probably end up getting mad part way through and giving up haha. I’m a little bit curious, but not enough to give her any money.
She isn’t that smart. Proven time and time again.
You say that based on your knowledge of German law. Or French law? Or any other Euporean country where it might be sold. Or are you just pulling this out of your ass?
Mark, is that you?
There have been autobiographies where they had to censor whole pages after print in Germany.
A novelized version would be harder to prove.
I say it based on my knowledge of the threshold of fiction/fact and the ability of a skilled writer (not Kelly, necessarily, but someone she might hire) to concoct a plot, characters and details that borrow some aspects of the situation with which we are all way too familiar and set them in a completely different time/place/set of circumstances, with an outcome predicated on the events in the lives of those characters and the way in which they deal with those invented situations (i.e.: “Little House on the Prairie (Laura Ingalls Wilder – her own story),” “A Reunion of Ghosts” by Judith Claire Mitchell – Fritz & Clara Immerwahr Klaber).
And what lovely manners, LTG. Your mother must be proud of the way you use your words.
No real acting career left, bankrupt, and has lost custody of her children. So the only thing left is to write a book and in the process make the father of her children upset. The same man who has from all accounts been very patient with her and made sure Kelly continued to have a relationship with her children.
It has been mentioned before, Kelly is acting like someone who wanted to lose custody. She seems more concerned with the attention
I knew a woman who lost custody by “courting fate” with the wealthy father of her child, by being difficult, using the kid against him, etc. at this point, her daughter wants nothing to do with her because of her endless dramatics and BS. The thing is, the woman remains clueless of the harm she did, and to this day insists it was ALL the fault of her “evil ex”.
My take on that situation was that she was mental; and my take on Kelly is the same.
Exactly. I think it’s too simple to say that Kelly didn’t want custody, I’m sure she wants/wanted it. I’m sure it sets her teeth on edge that she doesn’t have it, but in the end she’s a self-destructive person.
It would never have been good enough if she couldn’t totally destroy Daniel even if it destroyed her and her kids in the process.
I’ve known several people who are genuinely puzzled when all of their BS blows up in their face. It’s never their fault, everyone else is difficult and evil, and of course they have good intentions and want what’s best for everyone! Some people really aren’t very bright and don’t think things out farther than the immediate future.
Oh he is 100% doing this to muzzle her. Note the complete lack of interviews / martyr photos / pleas for kidnapping from her side once Monaco took over.
I bet the visitations she has (which are actually quite generous under the circumstances) are contingent on her silence.
And also bet any legal action on his part is to keep her muzzled.
He doesn’t care about Vanity Fair. He cares about his ex’s huge mouth and martyr complex.
As soon as Monaco took over the judge issued a gag order, that is the only reason she isn’t continuing to make a stink.
I bet a she could be a good writer for a soap or work with a ghost to get her ideas into some form – I mean she makes things up constantly.
I’ve never seen someone so self-destructive as her once it didn’t go her way. It could be she has a new lawyer who told her not to say anything publicly after the announcement was made about custody. If she does have a new lawyer, she won’t listen to him/her long, though.
I totally agree Lara K, “he cares about his ex’s huge mouth and martyr complex”, he is also the only one who truly has the children’s best interests front and foremost in his mind and heart. Mother ‘Murica, seems only intent on serving her own agenda, at all costs. Daniel seems to be the only rational parent in this sad, ongoing saga. I wonder how the children will view this is ten years or so?
…and Kelly shall hence forth be forever known as “Mother ‘Murica”.
What is the story on the ex husband?
Nobody really knows because ITS ALL ABOUT KELLY.
The story I’m getting is that he’s really, really smart. She should have been thrilled to be with him.
Is he better/shrewder at navigating these issues because he’s not an actor or a model? Halle Berry’s ex-es should take notes….
He apparently was a young, good looking, rich, foreign businessman who fell in love with a Hollywood actress. After the second baby, said actress decided she wanted sole custody of the kids and sought to kick her husband out of the country (Haille Berry 1.0?).
She filed false charges against him as a terrorist and of course our country just took her word for it, threw him out and he can’t re-enter the country. So he could only see his kids when they came to him in Monoco where his family lives. Anyways I would love to read HIS book and HIS side of things but he seems to have kept it classy all this time.
My guess is that he wants to put a stop to these lies about him because his 9 year old will soon be old enough to read these things as will the kid friends and their parents. And he wants to stop all the endless drama as well as the US press from making money off his family.
Kelly strikes me as a classical one-step thinker while Daniel is more of a three-step or even five-step thinker. Everything she’s done has been reactionary, impulsive and obviously not well thought out. I mean, wtf did she think was going to happen when she literally asked someone to kidnap her children in the name of patriotism?! That her kids would magically turn up on her doorstep and roll credits?
Meanwhile, everything he’s done has been logical, quiet and working towards the best interests of everyone involved. Not much of a story there. I think he’s done a great job dealing with a highly unstable and not very intelligent ex.
I think he’s bloody brilliant. If I were younger, better looking (and not happily married) I’d be off to Monaco like a shot. You don’t see brains, looks and a seeming lack of ego all in one package very often.
Men who’re willing to invest a ton of time, money and effort for the best of their kids aren’t to be sneezed at either. Too bad Kelly wouldn’t cooperate.
Doubt the original intent was to write a book. Whatever the case, he has the money to shut her down, at least somewhat. Payback is a bitch.
This would definitely fit in with the “Don’t attack her, but take away all her toys” MO he seems to be following. Get an order that the paparazzi can’t take the kids’ pictures (so she can’t parade them around in public); start suing publications that printed libelous stuff about him (so she won’t have such an easy time spreading lies about him and the case). It’s been interesting to watch this unfold.
@Insomniac
I’m really curious as to what KR thinks about the lawsuit and talks of more lawsuits, is she freaking out or does she think nothing will come of it. It has to worry her a bit that she won’t be able to run to those outlets with her lies.
You think she is worried? I think she has been in a low-level fury since she heard about the lawsuit. This is the most attention she has ever had and she is luxuriating in it. Trust, having her lies uncovered or even losing the right to spew them is infuriating her.
She s a narcissist which means ANY attention is welcome, they don’t care if their bs is exposed as long as they r the centre of attention and there will b a sob story as their always is. I used to work with a guy like that and the stunts he’d pull and the lies he told, it didn’t matter if he was being told off by his boss he got high off the attention, u could see it in his face.
Barrett there is no story on the ex … go back and read the links. He just fell in love with a troubled person and has been coping admirably. All the courts have seen this and responded appropriately.
But in her mind he is the evil ex. That’s all it takes. It’s HER side of the story and that’s all she needs to write the book (in her mind-whether true or not).
The fact that HE filed for divorce may explain some of this now. I would imagine that a narcissistic person does not take too kindly to being “left” and may explain her vengeful tactics.
@ ERM I agree. It’s very telling that she’s been spreading that lie of her filing first for all this time. It must be very embarrassing for her that Daniel has made this one of the points of contention in the injunction.
Every time I see pictures of them together all I can think is that he is really handsome and boyish looking and she looks like his grandmother. He seems like a nice (and incredibly patient) man and I hope karma comes to bite her in the a$$.
He is pretty cute and he looks genuinely happy to be with her in photos.
II was thinking the same thing.
She is only six years older than him. She looks much older than her age and he looks much younger.
A long time ago while they were still together, he said in an interview that they met at some athletic event (she now has some odd story about a foreign waitress from the Middle East or thereabouts enticing her to meet him in a restaurant, but he didn’t mention that…). Anyway, among other things he said that he was attracted to her natural look. I like that about her too, she seems to wear little or no makeup and actually looks like a real person. That’s probably why people think she looks so much older than him. We so seldom see actresses with their real face on, it’s easy to forget what people look like as they age when they don’t put a heavy mask on each day. She’s also on the thin side, and extra fat in the face makes you look younger. I remember when I was sick for several months and had trouble eating, I lost so much weight so fast that when I looked in the mirror, I though I had turned “old” overnight. But it was just loss of fat in the face, I “turned younger” again when I was able to start eating properly and regained the lost weight.
Just the title of the VF article is inflammatory. Brutal? No, brutal is being stalked by your ex (male or female) and having threats made so that you have to hide out and not be able to live a fairly normal life because you are afraid of what might happen.
I do not know the backstory on him but he annoys the heck out of me.
He seems miserable, even more so than her.
I’d be miserable if I had to deal with her. I wonder how she managed to attract him — he seems too smart for her. I mean, I know she’s pretty, but…
If you read up in the case you can see why he might seem “miserable.” But I think he always appeared thrilled and happy to be with both her and their kids.
She really blew it.
Kelly’s goal seems to be to make him miserable with her years of constant craziness in the media and in the courts.
Maybe now with the Monaco decision, he can have a little bit of well-deserved peace. It’s too bad she still has joint legal custody, because she could use that to hurt him another 13 years.
Read the case files. They are all over the Internet.
This, no really this.
“I don’t know anything about this subject but I’ve already decided I only dislike him.”
Well then, lol.
If he IS miserable, he’d have every right to be, since he’s been dealing with a constant barrage of slander from this woman for YEARS. He is either smiling or sporting a neutrally pleasant expression in every picture I’ve ever seen of him, which is quite a feat, all things considered.
@ CB Good memory about her being able to Skype the kids so soon after she kidnapped them. I doubt she would have been so generous towards him.
I have nothing to say about whether his lawsuit will shut down any book/movie/media tour plans of Kelly. Instead, I will say something that I have felt for a long time: I find the header photo of the three of them with Snoopy strangely poignant and a little heartbreaking. Hermes is cuddled up to Snoopy and has such a look of happiness on his baby face. He is just so adorable! Kelly and Daniel look pretty thrilled to be there too, and Daniel is even wearing a Peanuts T-shirt and posing with what was undoubtedly the DVD in their swag bag from this event.
Who could have predicted that just a few years later it would turn out the way it has? Does Kelly ever look at these old photos and think, “Maybe I shouldn’t have been such an @$$%^&* to Daniel. I had it pretty good back then, didn’t I?”
Nah, probably not. But as a divorcee and someone who will never have children of my own, I look at this picture and wonder how anyone could ever hate the father of their children so much as to pull even half the stunts Kelly has tried. How could she repeatedly hurt this precious little boy, not to mention this man who really seemed to love her and obviously cares about his children deeply? It is so very sad.
THIS.
I’ve known a couple people like her that were bent on revenge of evil sorts if you
made them mad. They were never wrong. This guy seems very kind and fair considering the tricks she has pulled on him. I was amazed that anybody would even defend her. He must be a very patient man that puts his kids first, unlike her.
I would pay money–decent money–tonread his unfiltered side of the story. Also, I think he’s very cute in a dorky, rich white guy kind of way, but I would guess he uses that to his advantage in business, when adversaries underestimate him because he looks so unassuming. Kelly likely did!
Kelly will never pull her head out pf her own ass long enough to regret what she’s done, but I think we can all agree that what happened is a shame.
Publishers have to look at the cost/benefit of any book. The legal fees, enormous time editing to clear any libel possibilities, fact-checking, etc would be cost prohibitive. She would have to self publish which would mean no money for her so why bother. Media is now also looking at the difficulty of having to question her crazy statements which directly contradict what is in public records if they interview her live or write articles about her.
This order from the German courts has been in the works from the Giersch lawyers for probably a long while. Remember that media “suddenly” started including statements and general information from family law specialists who said what she has been doing was “ill advised” and giving explanations of the legal situation instead of the crazy stuff being spouted by Rutherford and her cadre of television appearing “lawyers” that had been going unchallenged for years. Media had almost certainly been given notice that lawsuits were coming unless they started providing accurate information. One of them (Wendy the law professor?) disappeared and my guess is that the Giersch lawyers advised her that if she didn’t stop spreading grotesque legal misinformation she would face a bar complaint. So. The Giersch legal team shut down Rutherford. Through her enabler/co-libelers. No media, autobiographies, Hamptons galas for maternal child abduction, high ticket lawyers, attention except gawping at the crazy lady, or time in Europe unless it is on Giersch’s dime since she is broke. She is well and truly f*****.
And she has been stopped cold monetizing her beautiful children. He has great lawyers and he listens to them.
Self-publishing isn’t so hard today. You can always publish just in e-book format. A friend put his small book of poetry out on Kindle. Another friend has sold his specialized book on freelancing in our profession as just a passworded PDF. So you don’t even need to hire someone particularly computer savvy. He’s not getting rich off the book, but the pool of people interested was always going to be small and he sells some other useful tools in addition and of course still works on other jobs. But do talk shows invite PDF authors to discuss their book? Is there a Best Selling PDFs list to get on? Can PDF printout signing events be arranged?