Supermodel Linda Evangelista made what she hopes will be her last trip to Manhattan Family Court this afternoon, looking on in a trim, black dress suit — and wearing leopard-patterned Louboutins — as a judge signed off on the child support agreement she has struck with her billionaire French baby daddy.
The not-so-doting papa, Francois-Henri Pinault, chose not to attend the non-mandatory signing.
Both sides have insisted they are happy with the undisclosed and now sealed settlement, and have lobbied, through anonymous sources, to describe it as a victory — and as “close” or “not close at all” to what Evangelista had originally demanded, depending on who’s talking.
Either way, the settlement was safely presumed to be snuggly in the five figures per month.
When Evangelista first dragged Pinault to Family Court last summer, she had presented him with a tally of $46,000-a-month in expenses she had been paying, alone, for the fruit of their whirlwind 2005 romance — five-year-old Augustin, or “Augie.”
The tally included some $16,000 a month for a tag team of gun-toting, former NYPD-detective chauffeurs — nearly all of which she herself was deducting as a business expense. Then there was the $80,000-a-year cost of a round-the-clock nanny.
“He has gone a long way toward meeting those original demands,” a source close to the negotiation said yesterday of Pinault.
“Not close at all,” countered a contrary source who also knew the figure.
Pinault is the CEO of the Paris-based luxury conglomerate that owns Gucci and Yves St. Laurent. He is raising a four-year-old daughter, Valentina, with his glamorous wife, movie star Salma Hayek, who he met four months after ditching Evangelista in January, 2006 — right after learning the cat walker was pregnant.
Evangelista is worth a cool $8 million herself, according to statements made by Pinault lawyer David Aronson at hearings last year. She took the stand briefly on Friday, telling Support Magistrate Paul Ryneski that she is a spokesmodel for Chanel and still asks for — and receives — $100,000 for the occasional stroll down the runway.
In previous court hearings, Evangelista’s lawyer, William Beslow, has complained that while Pinault lavishes wealth on Valentina, he paid virtually nothing to support Augie prior to a temporary court order last year.
Today, all parties left court without commenting on the settlement — though Evangelista allowed herself a slight smile as she left court, her lawyer at her side..