François-Henri Pinault (Steven Hirsch)
D’accord!
Supermodel Linda Evangelista came to court wearing a sunny smile and a chiffon dress after reaching a deal yesterday in a bitterly contested child-support battle with her billionaire baby-daddy, François-Henri Pinault (pictured).
The settlement was reached just as the stunner was expected to take the stand to claim that Pinault, the CEO of the Paris-based luxury conglomerate that owns Gucci and Yves St. Laurent, had wanted her to have an abortion.
“He has gone a long way toward meeting those original demands,” a source close to the negotiations said of Pinault, who had been on the hook for a potential $46,000 a month that Evangelista said she needed for the nannies, chauffeurs, bodyguards and other expenses of Augustin, the 5-year-old son conceived during their whirlwind 2005 affair.
Pinault, 49, is raising a 4-year-old daughter, Valentina, with his glamorous wife, movie star Salma Hayek, whom he met four months after ditching Evangelista in January 2006 — right after learning she was pregnant.
In previous court hearings, Evangelista’s lawyer, William Beslow, had complained that while Pinault lavishes wealth on Valentina, he paid virtually nothing to support Augie prior to a temporary court order last year.
The surprise settlement — believed to be snugly into five figures per month — was reached by telephone in the morning, the source said.
Evangelista was set to take the stand for a second day for tesimony that would have touched on her claim, teased in opening statements by her lawyer last week, that Pinault wanted the pregnancy to be terminated — something Pinault has denied.
Evangelista’s “abortion” testimony would have dealt a public-relations blow to the wealthy female clients of Pinault, whose company also owns the luxury brands Bottega Veneta and Boucheron.
In a hearing last year, she had presented Pinault with a list of little Augie’s expenses totaling more than $46,000 a month — a figure that included about $16,000 a month for gun-toting, ex-NYPD detective chauffeurs, plus a 24-hour nanny costing almost $7,000 a month.
“I say this with Mr. Beslow beside me — everybody’s glad,” Pinault’s lawyer, David Aronson, said. “For the sake of the child.”
Just how well Evangelista and Augie made out remains a mystery.
Another source insisted that the final number “is not close to the original demands” of $46,000 a month.
Both parties are expected to return to court today to either sign off on the settlement or resume the trial should the negotiations break down.