Seems like old times for billionaire Ron Perelman and his stunning ex-wife Patricia Duff – the notorious divorcees are duking it out again in court.
Perelman, 64, and Duff, 53, were both in Manhattan Supreme Court yesterday, where the Revlon chief’s lawyer was backing a move by their daughter Caleigh’s court-appointed attorney seeking an order of protection against her multimillionaire mom.
“There is an incredible amount of emotional abuse going on,” Perelman’s lawyer, Adria Hillman, told Justice Rosalyn Richter.
“[Caleigh] is under stress. She is fearful. She has stated that she does not want to go back to her mother,” Hillman said.
Duff’s lawyer, Yoni Levoritz, downplayed the daughter’s claims as typical mother-and-teenager disagreements, noting that children of divorced parents often pit one against the other.
“My client has not done anything different than any other parent of a 13-year-old might do,” Levoritz said.
Details of Duff’s alleged emotional abuse were not revealed. The judge told her lawyer it had to do with an “increasingly contentious verbal situation, escalating disputes between your client and the child, which is causing great stress for the child.”
Richter refused to sign the protection order or change the couple’s custody setup for the time being, saying she wants to investigate the matter further. At first blush, the judge said, it appears to be more “than an ordinary mother-daughter dispute” but less than the emergency situation Perelman’s side contends it is.
She also urged both sides to play nice, a message she’d gotten in an affidavit from Caleigh.
“I’m letting you know the child is hurting and doesn’t want another round of public humiliation,” she said in a clear reference to the couple’s years-long first go-round in divorce court.
The powder-puff pooh-bah and the brainy blond beauty got hitched in 1994 but broke up less than two years later, leading to a dirty knockdown, drag-out divorce and custody battle that raged for five years.
Their ugly court clashes included back-and-forth charges of verbal and physical abuse and accusations of poor parenting. “[I]nstead of working . . . in Caleigh’s best interest, [they] have made this a take-no-prisoners, scorched-earth battle to the death,” the judge who handled the divorce wrote.
The custody case alone spawned a stop-and-start, 21- month trial and a 12,000-page trial transcript, and each side spent more than $7 million in legal fees.
The case came to a close with the sides getting equal parenting time, Perelman getting decision-making power over their daughter’s affairs, and Duff getting more than $12,000 a month in child support.
Perelman went on to marry – and get another nasty divorce from – “Sea of Love” actress Ellen Barkin. Duff is a longtime political activist who’s most recently been fund-raising for Barack Obama.
Perelman and Duff have each been married four times.