Halle Berry custody: Ex makes shocking claim about son, 12
Olivier Martinez has asked a court for a temporary restraining order against his ex-wife, Halle Berry, and for sole custody of their 12-year-old son, Maceo, alleging that the Oscar winner choked the boy during an argument on Sept. 26. Berry’s attorney called the filing “entirely meritless and deliberately misleading.”
The new Halle Berry custody dispute surfaced Thursday, Oct. 1, when Page Six and Variety obtained the court papers. None of the allegations has been tested in court.
Inside Martinez’s restraining order petition
According to the filing, the argument started after Berry told Maceo he looked “stupid” and was “such an idiot” for playing a game with virtual reality goggles. Martinez alleges that Berry “jumped on our son and started physically fighting with him,” then grabbed him by the neck and choked him while shouting, “Who is dominant now?! Who is dominant?!” Martinez claims Berry’s fiancé, musician Van Hunt, was present, Page Six reported.
Martinez wrote that Maceo called him to be picked up and does not want to return to his mother’s home. “I believe he may be traumatized by the incident,” he said in the filing, according to Variety. He also wrote that Berry texted him an apology afterward.
The petition describes what Martinez calls a pattern. He claims Berry has wrestled Maceo to the ground and made him “tap out” over the past year and a half. He also alleges that in 2023 she told their son his father was a “white” expletive “trying to rob a Black woman” over child support, then asked the boy, “How do you feel about that as a Black man?”
What Martinez wants from the court
In the Halle Berry custody request, Martinez wants more than sole custody, which would replace the parents’ current shared arrangement. He is also seeking restraining orders covering himself and his son. He asked that Berry be barred from using alcohol or other substances during visits, citing what he called “significant concerns” about her mental health and drinking, per Page Six.
“I do not want to permanently sever the relationship between our son and (Berry),” Martinez wrote, adding that he does not think they should be together until she takes “sufficient accountability for her actions.”
Berry’s lawyer fires back
Berry’s attorney, Marina Beck, pushed back on the Halle Berry custody filing in a statement, saying that there is “voluminous evidence, including numerous judicial rulings,” that Martinez repeatedly violated court orders and interfered with “necessary therapeutic and educational interventions” for Maceo, and that he has already been sanctioned for it.
Beck accused Martinez of “a well-documented history of erratic, possessive and violent behavior.” She said Berry is “deeply saddened” but “will not allow it to deter her from fighting for Maceo’s best interests.”
A decade-long Halle Berry custody battle
Berry and Martinez, both 60, married in 2013 and split in October 2015. Their divorce took eight years to finalize, Page Six noted. In a September 2024 filing, Berry said she had spent more than $200,000 trying to co-parent with Martinez and accused him of refusing to communicate “in a child-centered way.”
“I have done everything possible to work with Olivier, to communicate with him, and to engage him in the decision-making process regarding our son in an amicable way,” Berry wrote then, arguing that he had been “oppositional and unmovable on all major issues relating to Maceo.” The latest Halle Berry custody filing reopens that fight with far more serious claims.
Berry also shares an 18-year-old daughter, Nahla, with ex Gabriel Aubry. For more celebrity legal news, read our coverage of Bethenny Frankel’s divorce fight and the latest from our Celebrities and Pop Culture desk.