Hollywoods

MOVE over Brad and Angelina – Hollywood has another bitter custody war on its hands, and this one is about to get even messier, with a 13-year-old boy preparing to give evidence against his own parents.

Oscar-winner Halle Berry and her ex-husband Olivier Martinez are locked in an explosive legal battle over their son Maceo after allegations of physical abuse plunged their already turbulent relationship into fresh crisis.

Today Maceo will appear in court to give evidence in a hearing over a restraining order sought by his dad, who has accused 60-year-old Halle of attacking the teenager during an argument at her home in September.

The judge has ruled that Maceo will testify, despite Halle’s objections, although his evidence is limited to the restraining order request and he will appear in a closed courtroom.

It marks a dramatic new chapter in a custody battle that has dragged on for years since the couple’s disastrous marriage collapsed in 2015 after just two years.

And while French actor Olivier insists his son deserves to have his voice heard, Halle claims the boy has been “coached and manipulated”.

The latest showdown erupted after Olivier, who is also 60, obtained a temporary domestic violence restraining order against Halle this month, accusing her of physically abusing Maceo on September 26 this year.

In the court filings, he alleged she jumped on their son, put her hands around his neck and choked him.

He claimed the row erupted after Halle called Maceo “stupid” over a game involving virtual reality glasses, and that afterwards a “traumatised” Maceo begged Olivier to pick him up.

Halle has vehemently denied the allegations, insisting the pair were “roughhousing”.

She says the incident arose as she tried to enforce boundaries, claiming Maceo had been ­physically aggressive towards her.

In a statement, she said: “I have never physically, emotionally, or otherwise abused Maceo. I am a victim of domestic violence, and I help ­victims of domestic violence . . . I am not a perpetrator of violence. I would never hurt our child.”

Halle has found a fierce ally in 18-year-old Nahla, her daughter by former partner Gabriel Aubry, who leapt to her mum’s defence in a sworn declaration.

She said: “I have never seen my mom hit, slap, choke, grab or physically abuse Maceo in any way.

“I have never seen my mom place her hands around Maceo’s neck, put him in a choke hold, restrict his breathing or engage in any conduct remotely resembling the allegations that have been made against her.”

Nahla described Halle as a “loving and devoted parent”.

It is a far cry from how it all began.

Halle and Olivier met in 2010 in South Africa on the set of the horror film Dark Tide, shortly after she had split from French-Canadian model Gabriel.

They got engaged in 2012 and married in France in July 2013, and Halle gave birth to Maceo that October.

For a time they appeared to have found happiness together, with Maceo’s arrival completing the family.

Now Halle’s lawyer Marina Beck has branded the court filing “entirely meritless and deliberately misleading”.

She claimed Olivier had repeatedly violated court orders, “misconduct for which Mr Martinez has already been legally sanctioned”, and alleged he has a ­history of “erratic, possessive and ­violent behaviour”.

Halle also accuses Olivier of ignoring evidence which she says contradicts his version of events, including statements from her now-fiancé Van Hunt, who was present, and what she describes as contemporaneous video evidence.

Her filing reads: “Van Hunt was physically present during the incident and is the only adult third-party eyewitness to the events at issue.”

She argued that Maceo has “a ­personal interest in minimising his own conduct”, claiming he has behaved similarly at school.

Halle told the court that making him testify would place him “directly in the middle of a highly contentious dispute between his parents” and risk harm to his wellbeing.

She added that he has spent the past two weeks mainly in Olivier’s care, discussing the allegations and the litigation.

But Olivier has launched a blistering counter-attack, insisting his son is the real victim.

His lawyer Patrick Baghdaserians said: “We vehemently deny such ­allegations. The child is the primary victim here. Victims of abuse should be able to testify regarding the abuse inflicted upon them.”

He added: “We are not surprised that the opposing party does not want the child Maceo to testify.

“The opposing party is seemingly scared of what the child will say.”

Olivier said Maceo “was concerned that no one will believe him over his mother” and “wants to speak with the court to provide his side of the story”.

He continued in his declaration: “Given that our son is 13 years old, I believe it would certainly be in his best interest for him to address the court.

“I believe that our son’s testimony will be the key to the Court learning the full truth about the events that occurred on September 26.

“I am the parent who wants the truth to come out. I am the parent who does not want to suppress Maceo’s voice.”

Mr Baghdaserians warned that if their son was stopped from speaking, Olivier “fears that [Maceo] would be dissuaded from reporting problems or potential abuse in the future”.

The team also expected Halle “will try to prevent Maceo from addressing the court directly”.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Shelley Kaufman ruled that “the minor child shall not be coached” and reminded both parents that existing orders remain in force, including not discussing custody issues or court papers with him.

But Olivier has hit back by asking the judge to block Nahla from testifying, claiming she is “unquestionably biased” and has “no significant bearing” on the case.

He said it was not appropriate for Halle to “insert her daughter into ­litigation that does not involve her”.

The hearing is set to be an ­agonising showdown for two exes who have been trading blows in court for years over how to raise Maceo.

The marriage was short-lived. The couple’s wedding took place in France on July 13, 2013, but cracks soon began to show.

In January 2015, showbiz news ­service TMZ reported that Olivier had appeared to push a worker at Los Angeles airport with a child car seat as photographers closed in.

He was named a suspect in a battery investigation but no charges followed.

By October 2015 the couple had confirmed their split, saying in a joint statement they were divorcing “with a heavy heart” and wished each other “nothing but happiness in life”.

Yet the bitter legal wrangling ­rumbled on for the best part of a decade, with their divorce not ­finalised until August 2023.

The settlement required Halle to pay £6,000 a month in child support, cover Maceo’s private school tuition and contribute more than £41,500 towards Olivier’s legal fees, with the pair sharing joint custody of Maceo.

But the courtroom clashes did not stop there. In 2024 the pair were back in front of a judge over co- parenting therapy, with Halle accusing Olivier of trying to delay it by taking “the summer off” to travel.

She then sought sole custody, claiming Maceo had “serious behaviour and learning problems” and that Olivier refused to get a tutor because it could interfere with their son’s football schedule.

Olivier disputed the claims. Halle also said she had spent more than £150,000 trying to “work with” her ex, and swiped at him over child support.

“As Olivier has advised this court, he lives off my child ­support,” she wrote.

Now Olivier has filed for sole custody and has been granted primary custody, along with a restraining order barring Halle from coming within 100 yards of him.

She has been given two days a week of court-ordered visitation and every other weekend with Maceo.

She has also completed a court-mandated parenting programme.

For now, the battle lines are firmly drawn, with Halle fighting to protect her reputation and relationship with her son, while Olivier insists Maceo’s account of events must be heard.

And with Maceo due to take the stand today, the latest chapter in one of Hollywood’s most vicious ­custody disputes is set to unfold in a courtroom far removed from the glitz and glamour of the world that the former couple once shared.

The Sun has approached representatives for both Halle and Olivier for comment.

DONNA Air was all smiles as she enjoyed a night out with former Tottenham Hotspur vice-chairman and property tycoon multi-millionaire Paul Kemsley last month.

The former Byker Grove actress, 47, was recently spotted leaving the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles with the multi-millionaire Brit, 59.

Onlookers claimed the pair “seemed really cosy” while he was heard telling a fan not to interrupt as he was “on a f***ing date.”

After moving to the States last year to pursue new film and TV roles, Donna will no doubt by impressed by Paul’s impressive network of contacts and ability to open doors.

But The Sun can reveal that she may be in for a shock – as he is at the centre of one of Hollywood’s most toxic divorce battles ever.

Sources told how the property magnate’s split from Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Dorit, who filed for divorce last April, has become “so brutal it makes the War of the Roses script look tame”.

And one warned: “I hope Donna knows what she’s getting into, because this divorce will be explosive. Dorit wants to destroy Paul and she will use every tool in her Gucci handbag to get what she wants.

“If I was Donna, I wouldn’t want to get caught up in it.”

Entrepreneur Paul – who is known as PK – and glamorous ex-wife Dorit have been locked in a poisonous battle since May 2024 when they decided to separate, and he moved out of their $6m mansion in Encino, California into a five star luxury hotel.

And the set of Real Housewives, which both have appeared on since 2016 as cast members, became the fighting ring in which the pair slugged it out, trading a series of vicious blows.

In perhaps the nastiest, in November 2024, Dorit branded her husband “a full-blown alcoholic” and told cameras he had “always” been a drinker.

She added: “Over the years, it’s gotten progressively worse, and little fights will turn into blow-ups. We would be in the gutter after a fight, screaming at one another. I don’t want that toxic energy around small children.”

Months after the episodes aired, in November, PK was pictured kissing Shana Wall outside Cipriani restaurant in Los Angeles and seemingly sounded the death knell for his nine-year marriage.

One day later, Dorit filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences and requested sole legal and physical custody of their two children, son Jagger, 12, and daughter Phoenix, nine. PK countered with a request for shared custody.

And the fight was to grow even nastier as time went on.

Just two months ago, Dorit claimed in court that her ex-husband was trying to force their kids into homelessness by refusing to maintain an informal agreement to pay the mortgage on their marital home in LA.

Court documents stated they were $6m behind on the payments – despite him earning “at least $2,000,000 a year”. It was also noted that he “has other income streams outside of the United States.”

PK then hit back that his ex-wife had blown $995,270 on “wardrobe related expenses” during a 14-month span between December 2024 and March 2026 – as the family faced the potential foreclosure of their home.

The filing included $69,000 in charges from Louis Vuitton, $69,000 from Chanel, $38,000 from Hermes, and $22,000 from Saint Honore that she racked up between October 30 last year and Jan 6.

The source continued: “Dorit’s shopping is out of control. Fame doesn’t suit some people and she became a bit of a diva after she joined the show. But it wasn’t that which caused her and Paul to break-up.

“The trouble started when they had a burglary, which she found very traumatic, and she was upset with him being away when it happened. She accused him of being absent when she needed him the most.”

In the terrifying ordeal, in 2021, three masked intruders broke to the couple’s home while she was sleeping and held her at gunpoint, threatening her life while her two young children were asleep in their own rooms.

She later recalled hearing them say: “Just kill her” as she prayed for her kids to stay asleep. The crooks ran off with over $1million in luxury handbags, watches, and jewelry.

The source continued: “She was badly traumatised, and they started drifting apart and being very mean to each other. She thought he was having affairs because he would often go missing, not answering his phone.

“He was spending a lot of time in London and she was thinking about hiring a private investigator, that’s for sure.

“Meanwhile for him, one of the worst blows came when she told the world he was an alcoholic after they had separated. That had an awful effect on him. To do that felt unforgivable.

“Now, she is demanding huge maintenance payments from PK, but he will argue that she earns more than him now and so she basically owes him. It’s definitely going to be explosive.”

Against such a poisonous backdrop, the source also warned that PK’s friendship with Donna, who has dated James Middleton and has daughter Freya with Damien Aspinall, will not go down well.

They went on: “Paul might not look like Robert Redford, but he is very generous – he showers women with gifts and fun nights. And he’s very charismatic and has a great sense of humour.

“He and Donna have been friends for ages and have become much closer of late.

“She always says she loves a man with a sense of humour and she finds Paul hilarious.

“He always says he put all his energy into turning Dorit into a TV star – he completely changed her style and the way she looked. If you look at the before and after pictures of her, there’s huge difference.

“To get Dorit the job on Housewives, he set up a dinner party with the show’s bosses, invited his most exciting friends and entrepreneurs, brought in a chef and spent thousands entertaining them all to land her the gig – and it worked.

“Paul saw the potential in her and he turned her into the star she is today.

“Over the years he has lost a lot of money and made a lot of money, but he’s always on the up. He always finds a way to get the deal done. He’s like a cat with nine lives – he always falls on his feet.

“But Dorit is out for revenge and his night out with Donna will only make her angrier and more bitter.

“Recently she has been saying: ‘I will show the world the real Paul Kemsley’ and she is certainly angry enough to really attack him. “This could be the most toxic divorce in Hollywood history.

“So far it’s making the War of the Roses script look tame.”

A spokesman for Donna last night said the couple were not dating and claimed Paul’s comment about a date was made “in jest”.

Michael Kearns, a trailblazing AIDS activist and author credited as the first out gay actor, has died. He was 76.

Filmmaker and professor Roland Palencia confirmed the actor’s death on social media, writing that Kearns had died Monday evening after feeling unwell and calling the paramedics on Sunday. Palencia said that the actor had been in and out of emergency rooms more than five times in the last few months.

“Michael Kearns was a friend, mentor, neighbor, and my movie buddy,” Palencia wrote. “For the past year, we watched an average of a movie a month. Our favorite theater was the Vista Theater in Los Feliz, with a larger-than-life screen and within walking distance of where we both lived. Our favorite film this year was ‘The History of Sound.’

“It is a strange feeling to know we will not see the living Michael again, who spoke in hyperbolic, superlative tones. For him, nothing in life was small enough; everything had magnified significance. He himself and his legacy are larger than life,” he continued. “I will miss him deeply. Our next movie was going to be ‘La Bola Negra,’ a film based on Federico García Lorca’s first openly gay play, the Spanish playwright [was] killed in 1936 by the fascist Francisco Franco army. Michael was our Los Angeles García Lorca.”

Born Jan. 8, 1950, and raised in St. Louis, Kearns felt odd from an early age.

“I couldn’t throw a ball particularly well. I didn’t excel in sports,” he told talk show host Sheila Kuehl during a 1998 appearance on “Get Used to It.”

“But one day I was put in the school play, and I excelled. Suddenly I realized I could entertain, and from that moment on it was just like this realization, ‘Oh my God, here is something that I can do, I have found it,’ and I was only 8 years old. From that moment on, to this very moment, I’ve never ever veered from that path.”

Kearns realized along the way that his path to stardom wouldn’t be so simple. He had initially been drawn to the theater as a means to escape his home life, and himself, but he ultimately found the craft inspired the opposite: “As I got into my 20s, coinciding with an awakening of other areas of my life — spiritual, sexuality — I found that the theater and being an actor was more of a way to truly connect with who I was as a person,” he told Kuehl.

Around this time, Kearns made his way to Chicago, where he studied acting at the original Goodman School of Drama, which became the Theatre School at DePaul University, and graduated in 1972. It was here that Kearns got his first taste of casting bias, and realized that he was facing a real dilemma: Did he want to be gay or did he want to become a commercially successful actor?

“In spite of the fact that most of the teachers were gay or lesbian, they had that Hollywood philosophy that if they knew you to be a homosexual, you were not as eligible to play heterosexuals,” he continued. “By that point I was out, out, out. I mean, there was no way I was going to alter my offstage behavior to please anyone.”

Kearns acted across film and television from the 1970s through the aughts, including roles in “Body Double,” “Nine Lives,” “Street Asylum” and “Beverly Hills, 90210.” During an era when it could be dangerous to be queer, the actor was out, and in 1991, he made television history when he shared that he was HIV positive on NBC’s “A Closer Look,” and the next day, “Entertainment Tonight.” The following year, he appeared on a segment of ABC’s dramedy series “Life Goes On” and played a character with HIV.

In 1975, Kearns used his acting chops to pull off a literary stunt in which he posed, both in nude photographs and in extensive interviews, as author Grant Tracy Saxon, a pen name for TV writer Thom Racina who penned “The Happy Hustler,” a faux memoir (it was actually fictionalized erotica) about a high-priced male sex worker. Years later, Kearns became an author himself and published five theater books including “T-Cells & Sympathy” and “Acting = Life,” which were nominated for Lambda Literary Awards.

The actor’s first major theater role in Los Angeles was in Tom Eyen’s comedy “The Dirtiest Show in Town” in 1972. Perhaps his most celebrated performance was playing the title role in Charles Ludlam’s “Camille” at Highways Performance Space in 1993. He also acted in James Carroll Pickett’s “Dream Man,” in 1985 and toured with the production internationally.

Kearns, who considered himself “a political creature as well as an actor,” also garnered acclaim for his solo theater works, which were inspired by the AIDS epidemic and his grief surrounding the too-frequent death of his friends. “Intimacies” and “More Intimacies,” in which he played a dozen diverse characters with AIDS, as well as solo pieces “Rock” and “Going In: Once Upon a Time in South Africa,” made Kearns feel that he had found new purpose and depth in his work.

“Somewhere in that time, I became an artist,” Kearns told The Times in 1994. “Whatever that pain, that loss, that tragedy was, I managed to spin it like an alchemist into something passionate. And it’s been increasingly so since.”

In 1992, he married his husband, Philip Juwig, who died the same year. Bereft, Kearns spent three years thinking, “What now?” and kept coming back to the same thing: He wanted to be a dad. In 1995 he adopted a baby girl, Tia Katherine Kearns, whom he named after his grandmother.

In 2017, he interviewed his daughter for the summer issue of Honeysuckle Magazine about her identity as a Black woman, her work as an artist and her unique upbringing. She said that she attended a progressive school and didn’t feel judged, noting, “they doted on my dad because he had a skill set that other dads didn’t; for school fundraisers; he could climb a ladder and decorate with panache.”

Later in the interview, she revealed that she had her dad’s passion for political activism.

“I think my political consciousness was formed early on,” she said. “I think it would have been impossible for me not to have an awareness of the world and political climate with a dad who is an openly gay actor and activist. Your openness and courage forced me to be honest with myself and the world I live in.”

Kearns gushed in a 2015 interview that his dream creative collaboration would be directing a project written by his daughter that explored race.

In the last couple of decades, the social justice crusader worked with Angelenos to develop their own voices through writing workshops. He also served as an artistic associate at the Skylight Theatre in Los Angeles, artist-in-residence at Housing Works, and artistic director of QueerWise, a Spoken Word collective he founded in 2012.

Kearns was widely recognized for his work, including the Robert Chesley Playwrighting Award (2005), honoring lifetime achievement in LGBTQ+ theater, and a COLA Fellowship (2005) from the city of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department to fund major new creative works. His acting career was highlighted by a Drama-Logue Award and a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award nomination for his lead role in “Camille.” Additionally, his national advocacy earned him the Victory Award (1999) from the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, alongside honors from the ACLU of Southern California (1987).

Kearns is survived by his daughter.

OSCAR-winner Eva Marie Saint, who has died aged 102, was a reluctant star who became a Hollywood legend.

From Alfred Hitchcock to Marlon Brando, the girl from New Jersey took on the biggest names in the business and triumphed.

She was nine months pregnant when she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in On The Waterfront in 1955, joking: “I may have the baby right here!”

Two days later her son — named Darrell, not Oscar — arrived.

Eva’s powerhouse performance alongside Marlon Brando was even more remarkable as it was her first film.

She had little truck with modern stars’ long acceptance speeches.

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The oldest living Oscar winner said of her two-sentence appearance: “That was a lot for someone to say in those days.

“Most people just said thank you and walked off the stage, which I loved.

“It’s gotten out of hand these days where people have to be funny and go on and on and on.”

With the worldwide success of follow-up movie North By Northwest, an agent pushed her to make more films and become a “superstar”.

Her reply was simple: “I can’t. I can only do one a year. I have young children.”

Her agent’s response was: “Well, I guess you won’t be a superstar.”

Her perfectly calm reply: “Well, I guess not.”

But she became one anyway, and her legendary beauty even inspired the 1984 song Rattlesnakes by Lloyd Cole.

Born in Newark, New Jersey, on July 4, 1924, Eva was from a Quaker background.

“I was in the chorus in high school, not a soloist,” she once said.

“I was on the basketball team. I played the violin, part of the orchestra. I never wanted to be out there alone. Ever.”

She studied acting at university in Ohio, then moved to New York, working in theatre and television.

Her big break came in the Broadway play The Trip To Bountiful, where she caught the eye of director Elia Kazan, who cast the then 29-year-old alongside Brando in On The Waterfront.

She said: “Brando was wonderful. Probably the finest actor I’ve ever worked with.”

But he was fickle. She said: “I only saw him once after On The Waterfront.

Years later, Elizabeth Taylor was having a birthday party and he came into the room.

“He came up, we hugged, and he saw a pretty brunette over my shoulder. He said goodbye and that was the last time I ever saw him.”

With an Oscar under her belt, Hollywood was desperate to make the most of her stardust, but Eva didn’t want to leave her second baby, Laurette, to work on North By Northwest.

Hitchcock’s on-set abuse was well known, but to Eva he was the perfect English gent.

She said: “Hitchcock was a high-class guy. He always had a suit on.”

North By Northwest was a box office hit and one of the pinnacles of Eva’s career.

Going out one night with co-star Cary Grant, she saw how he was mobbed.

She said: “I couldn’t have coped with that kind of fame. I wanted a normal life.”

And when she filmed Exodus in 1960 with Paul Newman, she took family on location in Israel and Cyprus.

She met Jeffrey Hayden before she was famous and they married in 1951 — a union that lasted 65 years until his death in 2016.

Eva’s TV roles included playing Superman’s mother in 2006 and Cybill Shepherd’s mum in Eighties hit TV series Moonlighting.

For her 100th birthday all her family gathered for a big party at her home in Los Angeles.

Eva said: “I certainly don’t feel 100 years old.”

Yet her age didn’t slow her down and she led an active life, saying: “I take walks out in the fresh air, like watching baseball — especially the Los Angeles Dodgers.

“I enjoy time with family and friends. A good life.”