A child custody battle can be not just traumatic and extremely painful for the parties involved, but also extremely expensive. “Gossip Girl” actress Kelly Rutherford has learned this the hard way. The actress recently filed for bankruptcy, and a nasty child custody battle that has pitted her against her German ex-husband over custody of their children is being blamed for the decision.
Her problems began when her estranged ex-husband filed a lawsuit for custody of the children when the children came to visit him over the summer. Soon after that, her hit TV series was cancelled. Rutherford then went from being one of the most recognized faces on television and a highly paid actor, to someone who was living on just over $1200 a month. At the height of her child custody battle, she appeared on The View in a tearful appearance, in which she vowed that she would never stop fighting to gain custody of her children. In August, a judge ruled that the children would continue to remain in France with their father.
During her Gossip Girl days, Rutherford earned as much as $ 40,000 a month from the TV show, and lived in a mansion worth $ 1 million. However, since the cancellation of the season, she has not had any other job offers, and has had no source of income. As a result, her income dropped to a mind blowing $ 1,200 soon after the series was cancelled in December last year.
According to the bankruptcy papers, she has more than $ 2 million in debt, and has just $ 23,000 in earnings. Her legal bills from the child custody battles have been the biggest blow. She owes her current team of family lawyers as much as $1.5 million in unpaid fees, and has an unpaid court transcript bill of $ 10,000.
