Halle Berry’s ex-husband Olivier Martinez demanded a massive six-figure lump sum from the actress to help him continue fighting her over custody, In Touch can exclusively report.
According to court documents obtained by In Touch, Olivier, 58, asked the court to award him attorney fees after Halle, 58, demanded he be stripped of legal custody of their 10-year-old son, Maceo.
Olivier said Halle should cough up $363,270.59 for his court fees. The breakdown is $320,000 for attorney fees, $25,000 for a forensic accountant, $7,500 for a custody expert and $10,000 for transcript costs.
Olivier said the money will be used to pay the law firm working on the custody battle. He said $150,000 of the funds will be used to pay for services provided to him from March to September.
The actor said he paid $55,000 to the firm, which he wants reimbursed by Halle. He said that he obtained a $45,000 loan to pay the fees, and the rest came from the sale of his Rolex watch.
In his motion, Olivier accused Halle of being the one who continues to push the “parties to court.” He said she is “well aware that” he does not have the “funds to maintain to continue litigation at all.”
Olivier accused Halle of “continuing to engage in the same pattern of insisting on attorney involvement at almost every turn, only now she is refusing to engage in any settlement or mediation efforts.”
He said he “had to sell his last expensive watch” to hire his new lawyer, who charged him a $10,000 retainer.
Olivier’s lawyer said, “Once hired, his current counsel asked [Halle] for an attorney fee contribution given the enormous disparity between the parties’ incomes and assets. [Halle] denied this request, thus denying [Olivier’s] access to justice, and she has fought [Olivier] aggressively, choosing the most expensive manner of dispute resolution — through the Court system, refusing continuances and foregoing hearings that she admittedly believes would waste resources.”
Olivier and Halle wed in 2013 and split in 2016. Their divorce dragged on for years until they finally reached a settlement in late 2023. Per the deal, Halle agreed to pay $8,000 per month in child support and both parties agreed to attend therapy sessions.
As In Touch previously reported, earlier this year, Halle accused Olivier of blowing off the coparenting therapy sessions they agreed to in the settlement. She also accused him of conspiring with her former employee to influence their son’s therapy.
Halle told the court, “Olivier lied and went behind my back trying to dig up negative information about me from a former employee and pressuring her to speak to [the therapist], without obtaining my consent, which Olivier later admitted to me. Notably, Olivier previously refused to grant consent for Maceo’s educational assessor to speak to [the therapist] regarding Maceo’s [needs]. [The therapist] did not agree to speak to Erica because she did not believe that anything Erica had to offer was relevant.”
Halle asked the court to award her sole legal custody. Olivier scoffed at the request.
His lawyer argued, “[Halle] is making this sole custody request and refusing to set it on a date sufficiently far ahead for [Olivier] to defend it knowing full well that [Olivier] has been asking [Halle] for months to make an attorney fee contribution as he does not have sufficient funds to pay his counsel. She has refused this request, despite the fact that [Halle] is admittedly earning several millions of dollars at this time, and likely more given her new movie about to be released.”
For her part, Halle claimed she spent over $200,000, including $55,000 to Olivier’s lawyers, in an attempt to resolve this matter. A judge has yet to rule.
Source Agencies
