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Image / Editorial

This High-Profile Custody Battle Is Baffling


By Jeanne Sutton
03rd May 2015
This High-Profile Custody Battle Is Baffling

The actress Kelly Rutherford is recognisable to most people for her role in Gossip Girl. While her co-star Blake Lively is on the press circuit talking about her new state of motherhood as she promotes her film The Age of Adaline, Rutherford’s personal life has been the exact opposite.

The actress lost custody of her children, Hermes and Helena, in 2012, when a judge ruled that her two kids, 8 and 5 respectively, live with her estranged husband in France. The past three years has seen Rutherford fight tooth and nail to have her children returned to the United States, where she lives full-time.

This incredibly difficult situation arose after Rutherford’s divorce from Daniel Giersch in 2010. The 2012 judgment came about after Giersch’s US work visa was revoked, meaning the businessman no longer had permission to live in America. He moved to France and argued successfully for full custody. The judge said that seeing as Giersch couldn’t be a parent in America, the easiest situation for everyone would be a transatlantic one with Giersch as the full-time carer. Rutherford has to fly regularly to Europe to see her two children. Her young daughter last lived with her mother when she was but two years old.The actress Kelly Rutherford is recognisable to most people for her role in Gossip Girl. While her co-star Blake Lively is on the press circuit talking about her new state of motherhood as she promotes her film The Age of Adaline, Rutherford’s personal life has been the exact opposite.The actress lost custody of her children, Hermes and Helena, in 2012, when a judge ruled that her two kids, 8 and 5 respectively, live with her estranged husband in France. The past three years has seen Rutherford fight tooth and nail to have her children returned to the United States, where she lives full-time.

This incredibly difficult situation arose after Rutherford’s divorce from Daniel Giersch in 2010. The 2012 judgment came about after Giersch’s US work visa was revoked, meaning the businessman no longer had permission to live in America. He moved to France and argued successfully for full custody. The judge said that seeing as Giersch couldn’t be a parent in America, the easiest situation for everyone would be a transatlantic one with Giersch as the full-time carer. Rutherford has to fly regularly to Europe to see her two children. Her young daughter last lived with her mother when she was but two years old.

This incredibly difficult situation arose after Rutherford’s divorce from the father of her children, Daniel Giersch in 2010. The 2012 judgment came about after Giersch’s US work visa was revoked, meaning the businessman no longer had permission to live in America. He moved to France and argued successfully for full custody. The judge said that seeing as Giersch couldn’t be a parent in America, the easiest situation for everyone would be a transatlantic one with Giersch as the full-time carer. Rutherford has to fly regularly to Europe to see her two children. Her young daughter last lived with her mother when she was but two years old.

Now, Page Six reports that Rutherford is enlisting the help of the White House to get custody of her children back. She’s submitted a petition to whitehouse.gov asking that a federal order be made demanding her children be allowed move home to the States. Rutherford has maintained tht the original judgment was an infringement of her children’s constitutional rights, and that such rights should come before parental ones. She says that her children have been essentially deported, despite their status as American citizens.

Rutherford’s main argument is that her ex has never since attempted to return to the States, and that his claims ?he’s been denied re-entry into the country are void.

Page Six

Follow Jeanne Sutton on Twitter @jeannedesutun