There will be no kissing and making-up between Ellen Barkin and her magnate ex-hubby Ron Perelman.
A deciosn by the state Appellate Division says the billionaire Revlon head has to fork over the $4.3 million he agreed to pay the “Sea of Love” star’s production company, despite his contentions that he didn’t have to because she’d violated their divorce deal.
In a unanimous decision, the appeals court said the agreements Perelman signed with Barkin and her production company are completely separate – and there’s no evidence she violated the divorce agreement anyway.
Their divorce went through on Valentine’s Day 2006, with Barkin raking in tens of millions of dollars from her five year union with cosmetics king.
Regardless, the split was anything but amicable – Barkin made headlines for auctioning off all the jewelry he’d given her for $20 million, and throwing a drink of water in his face when they bumped into each other at the Waverly Inn.
Perelman was supposed to start making $4.3 million in payments to a production company he, Barkin and her brother George Barkin started called Applehead that March. They’d formed the company while they were married because “Perelman had not approved of her career as an actor, and they agreed that the production company would provide a way for her to continue working in the film industry,” the decision says.
When the powder puff poohbah refused to pay up, the Barkins sued him for breach of contract. Perelman maintained it was his ex who breached the contract by blabbing about their marriage to New York Magazine and for failing to take steps to obtain a get, a Jewish religious divorce.
The Appellate Division said there’s no evidence Barkin talked to New York, noting the story said she’d “declined multiple requests to comment for this story, citing the confidentiality of their divorce agreement.” The judges also noted their separation agreement said she would cooperate in obtaining a get, not that she had to initiate the proceedings.
They also noted that despite his stated sense of urgency, “Perelman himself did not do anything to advance proceedings before the religious tribunals until April 2008, which was two years after the divorce.”
When a lower court ruling came to the same conclusion as the appeals court this past January, Perelman spokeswoman Christine Taylor called Barkin’s claims “a desperate last grab for further undeserved moneys.”
Applehead lawyer Jacob Buchdahl said, “Mr. Perelman’s lawyers tried to turn this into a marital dispute. It’s not. It’s a business dispute.” He added that “Applehead and Ms. Barkin were very thrilled by the decision.”
A Perelman spokeswoman called the ruling “unfortunate.”
“We still maintain Ms Barkin should not be entitled to any additional money beyond the enormous settlement she received five years ago. Mr. Perelman has moved on from this and is leaving it to his attorneys to handle the still pending claims against Ms. Barkin and others based on their misconduct in managing and controlling Applehead Pictures,” Taylor said.