Halle Berry just had a huge weight lifted off her shoulders after a years-long legal battle over child support.
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The John Wick actress–who is a mother to 14-year-old Nahla and 7-year-old Maceo–has been involved in a child support battle since 2014. Berry is court-ordered to pay monthly support to the fathers of both of her children: Gabriel Aubry and Olivier Martinez.
The monthly amount for both orders is a pretty penny, which is something the star has been fighting for years. This week, she received some reprieve, with her monthly payment to Aubry being cut in half from $16,000 to $8,000.
Berry and the model started dating in 2006. They welcomed their daughter two years later, but split in 2010. According to reports from E! News, the custody battle got tricky in 2012 after Aubry blocked Berry’s request for courts to allow her to relocate to France with Nahla and then-fiancé Olivier Martinez.
Halle’s original $16,000 monthly payment was based on her 2012 income, with court documents reportedly showing the X-Men star’s income as $4.7 million during the first nine months of 2012. At the time, Aubry’s income was a fraction of that at $192,921. The original ruling also included the actress paying retroactive support totaling $115,000 and $300,000 for Aubry’s legal fees, granting the couple 50-50 joint custody.
Berry paid the support without contest for more than eight years, but she vocalized her anger surrounding the arrangement last year. In February 2021, the actress took to Instagram to post a graphic stating, “Women don’t owe you s**t.”
She went on to reply to followers in her comments section, expressing her feelings about the biases of child support.
“I’ve been paying it for a decade now. I feel if a woman or man is having to pay support that is way more than the reasonable needs to help SUPPORT the child, I think that is wrong!” she wrote.
She went on to say that parenting should be an effort completed by both parents.
“I understand some parents (man or woman) may need help, but I also feel in these modern times both men and women have the responsibility to financially take care of their children and work hard and make every effort to do so,” she said. “The way many laws are set up, people are allowed to USE children in order to be awarded money to live a lifestyle that not only did they not earn, but that is way above and beyond the child’s reasonable needs, and that is ‘THE WRONG’ and where I see the abuse.”
Now, according to reports from The Blast, Berry’s payments have been cut in half to $8,000 a month. Her current child support arrangement with the father of her son, Olivier Martinez, is currently unknown.