Olivier Martinez has been granted primary physical custody of his 13-year-old son Maceo after accusing ex-wife Halle Berry of choking the boy during a September 26 altercation, an allegation the Oscar-winning actress vehemently denies as she heads toward an October 16 court hearing.
The bitter feud between the former spouses erupted into open warfare in early October 2026, when Martinez filed court documents accusing Berry of grabbing their son by the neck and choking him at her home on September 26. According to filings obtained by Page Six, the alleged incident began when Berry called Maceo "stupid" over playing a game with virtual reality goggles. Martinez claimed a "traumatized" Maceo then begged his father to pick him up and told him he did not want to return to Berry's house. The actor also alleged Berry had physically wrestled with the boy on previous occasions and had made racially charged remarks to him.
A judge responded by granting Martinez primary custody and issuing a restraining order barring Berry from coming within 100 yards of her ex-husband. Berry was restricted to court-ordered visitation of two days a week plus every other weekend. Martinez also included private text messages in his filing in which Maceo pleaded with his father to collect him following the alleged encounter.
Berry fired back through her attorney Marina Beck, who called Martinez's filing "entirely meritless and deliberately misleading." In a strongly worded statement, Beck pointed to "voluminous evidence, including numerous judicial rulings," that Martinez had repeatedly violated court orders and interfered with therapeutic and educational interventions for Maceo, misconduct for which she said he had already been legally sanctioned. Beck further alleged the actor has a history of "erratic, possessive and violent behavior." In her own court response, Berry asked the court to reinstate the couple's 50/50 custody agreement and claimed Martinez causes Maceo to be "angry and combative" toward her through continued efforts to turn the boy against his mother.
The couple's 18-year-old daughter Nahla, Berry's child from her previous relationship with Gabriel Aubry, broke her silence in a rare written declaration backing her mother and disputing the claims against the actress. Meanwhile, both sides continue to trade accusations over child support: Berry has previously told the court that Martinez "lives off my child support" while she must keep working to earn it.
Berry and Martinez, both 60, met on the set of the 2012 film Dark Tide, married in July 2013 and split in October 2015. Their divorce took eight years to finalize. The exes are scheduled to appear in court again on October 16, 2026, in what has become one of the ugliest celebrity custody battles of the year.