Holding on to the special moments. Kelly Rutherford shared a beautiful photo of her son Hermes, 8, and daughter Helena, 6, on Thursday, Sept. 3, ahead of her Monaco custody hearing.
In the black-and-white snapshot, the Gossip Girl alum embraces her adorable children during a rare moment together. Rutherford and her mother, Ann Edwards, arrived in Monaco on Wednesday for her latest fight to bring her kids home to the U.S.
Last month, Rutherford hit yet another rough patch in her years-long custody battle with her German ex-husband, Daniel Giersch. After spending the summer with her children in NYC, the actress refused to send them back to Monaco to be with Giersch on their previously scheduled return date, only to be ordered to do so by a judge a few days later. She filed an emergency writ to the federal court an hour after the hearing, but was denied.
Rutherford, 46, and Giersch, 41, split in 2008 when she was pregnant with Helena, and finalized their divorced in 2010. Giersch has had custody of their children and they’ve been living overseas since 2012, because he was refused re-entry into the United States.
“Monaco has no interest in the children, and we will be showing the Monaco judge the father’s agreement ‘never’ claimed that the children ARE residents of Monaco, or should be declared residents of Monaco,” Rutherford’s attorney, Wendy Murphy, told Us Weekly in a statement following the August ruling.
“New York is a ‘Sanctuary City,’ meaning non-criminal illegal aliens cannot be forced to leave,” she continued. “How on earth could a judge from the lowest ranking court in the State court system find it proper to grant American citizens less legal protections, in terms of the right to LIVE in the United States, than people who are not citizens and have no right to be here?”
