MAMMA MIA: Linda Evangelista arrives at Manhattan Family Court yesterday ready to go toe-to-toe in her fight for $46,000-a-month in child support for her 5-year-old son. (WireImage)
What did she ever see in this dude?
Sultry catwalker Linda Evangelista got out of bed yesterday, this time for far more than $10,000.
She strutted into Manhattan Family Court, with its fluorescent lights and hard wooden benches, looking slim and tall in a floral silk blouse, black skirt and the standard accoutrement of supermodels everywhere — sky-high, tan do-me pumps by Christian Louboutin.
The lady who once said she never rolled out from under the covers for less than 10 grand looked worth every penny. But her face, ethereally pretty at 46, bore a startling scowl that she leveled like a heat-seeking missile at a cad named — what else would he be named? — François-Henri Pinault.
Franky is the froggy billionaire who knocked up Linda during a whirlwind, four-month affair that stretched from here to Milan. Then he failed to pay support for nearly the entire life of the now 5-year-old boy who resulted from their four months in heaven.
“What should I do?’’ Pinault said.
Pinault, who bears the about-to-turn-50-year-old mug of a losing boxer, said that Linda asked him for nothing, during testy cross-examination by Evangelista’s lawyer, William Beslow. He thus failed to endear himself to struggling single moms in the cheap seats. Or anyone else.
“How about paying something?’’ Beslow offered.
So, why were we all dragged out of our meager beds to witness rich people’s problems?
Maybe because this case of sex, lies and major money is shaping up as the Super Bowl of child-support cases.
And this battle royale could wind up defining the future of rascals everywhere. Men who want to indulge in zipless adventures without suffering the consequences.
Evangelista wants big bucks — Pinault’s lawyer says she’s asking for $46,000 a month, or an astonishing $1,500 a day — for the care, feeding, entertainment, transportation and full-time nannies of little Augustin.
But when Pinault’s attorney, David Aronson, mentioned the 46 grand figure, I thought Evangelista would have a stroke.
She shrieked audibly for a split second and looked ready to leap from her chair before piping down. Her side adamantly denies it wants any particular sum in child support and also insists that any amount awarded by the court will be for Augie, not his mom.
The two sides also can’t agree on Evangelista’s claim that after she told Pinault she was pregnant, he asked her to have an abortion.
Ah — he did admit, like a true gentleman, that he squelched Linda’s joy at impending motherhood. Hearing the blessed news, he said he told the woman with whom he was intimate:
“I’m not in a position to have a baby,’’
That sounds pretty final to me.
Then he asked her, “What is your intention with the baby?’’
Evangelista said she was keeping it. But the relationship was over.
Asked by Beslow if she’d gotten pregnant intentionally, Pinault said without blinking, “Well, she can answer that, but I guess.”
Sweet.
Apparently, sex with a top model was no biggie either for a man who made a mint selling Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent for his family firm, becoming the Eurotrash version of a New York garmento.
“It was seven days.’’ Pinault corrected Beslow in heavily accented English, thus minimizing his relationship with one of the world’s most desirable women.
Soon after he ended things with the preggers beauty, Pinault knocked up actress Salma Hayek with a girl, Valentina. Two years after the child was born, he married her.
Then, according to Beslow, he plunked down $150,000 on a trip to Bora Bora for the girl, now four, while Augie stayed home.
Rich people’s problems. I’ll stay poor.