Leisure mogul and famend artwork collector David Geffen was sued on Tuesday morning by his estranged husband, mannequin Donovan Michaels, for alleged breach of contract, Selection reported earlier this week.
The swimsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court docket and accuses Geffen, who initiated divorce proceedings, of treating his former companion as “a dwelling social experiment — a trophy to indicate off to his rich associates, below the guise of benevolence.”
The 33-page criticism compares their nine-year relationship, together with two years of marriage, to the rag-to-riches plot of “Buying and selling Locations,” with a “younger weak black man, orphaned as a toddler” invited into the world of “an exploiter, masquerading as a white knight whereas hiding behind wealth, philanthropy and fame.” In keeping with Forbes, Geffen, 82, is price $9 billion.
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Michaels, who Selection notes was positioned within the foster care system at 18 months, is 32. In his swimsuit, Michaels claims Geffen promised him “lifelong” monetary assist however then “lower him off” and evicted him shortly after submitting for divorce.
The lawsuit additionally claims Michaels met Geffen in 2016 by SeekingArrangements.com, a web site “the place males like Geffen store for the weak,” the criticism states. The criticism provides: “Geffen discovered of Michaels’ troubled previous — his historical past of neglect, poverty, instability, and authorized entanglements. Somewhat than reply with empathy or provide real assist, Geffen noticed Michaels as an object of exploitation: a younger, enticing and homosexual black man whose trauma could possibly be weaponized for Geffen’s private gratification and public picture.”
Patricia Glaser, authorized illustration for Geffen, referred to as the lawsuit in a press release to Selection “pathetic.” “There was and is not any contract — specific, written or implied — that has ever existed,” she tells Selection. “We might be vigorously and righteously defending towards this false and pathetic lawsuit.”
Geffen wields huge affect in Hollywood and the larger artwork world, as a embellished patron of among the nation’s most influential cultural establishments: He donated $100 million to Lincoln Middle in 2015 and one other $100 million to the Museum of Trendy Artwork in New York in 2016. In 2017 he promised $150 million to the Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork, which stands as the biggest present within the museum’s historical past. The multibillionaire can be a daily member of the ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list, and has a set reportedly valued at $2 billion and wealthy with works by postwar masters together with Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock.
Extra just lately, his artwork dealings have ensnared Geffen in a really completely different form of authorized dispute: A he said-he mentioned begun by crypto billionaire Justin Sun, who in February referred to as on Geffen to return an Alberto Giacometti sculpture that Solar says was stolen from his assortment by an worker and offered as a part of an elaborate fraud. Solar bought the bronze, metal, and iron Giacometti, titled Le Nez (1949–65), at a Sotheby’s public sale of works from the Macklowe assortment in November 2021 for $78.4 million, working with the help of his former artwork adviser, Sydney Xiong, who’s accused of exchanging Le Nez for 2 unidentified work from Geffen’s assortment, reportedly price $55 million, and an extra $10.5 million in money.
Solar, who relies in Hong Kong, filed his swimsuit in February in New York, the place the sculpture is situated. The next April, Geffen hit again with a scathing 100-page countersuit which, in lots of phrases, described Solar’s case as a “sham.”
