Halle Berry Just Hit Back in Court With a Video, and Her Custody War With Olivier Martinez Took a Shocking Turn

Halle Berry is not backing down.

Five days after her ex-husband Olivier Martinez filed court papers accusing her of physically abusing their son Maceo, the Oscar winner has responded with a bombshell of her own: a new court filing, a timestamped video she says proves her innocence, and a pointed accusation that Maceo comes home from his father’s house “angry and combative.”

The battle, which has been simmering for more than a decade, has now turned into one of the ugliest celebrity custody fights of the year. And with a hearing set for October 16, neither side is holding back.

The Accusation That Started It All

On October 1, 2026, Olivier Martinez walked into Los Angeles Superior Court and filed for sole custody of Maceo along with a domestic violence restraining order against Berry. In the filing, obtained by People and USA Today, the French actor alleged that on September 26, Berry “physically abused our son, Maceo, by jumping on him, putting her hands around his neck, and choking him.”

Martinez, 60, claimed the confrontation began while Maceo was playing a video game with a VR headset. He alleged that Berry called the boy “stupid,” grabbed him by the neck, and shouted, “Who is dominant now?! Who is dominant?!” He also claimed Berry’s fiance, musician Van Hunt, was present during the incident.

“This is not the first time [Berry] has physically attacked our son,” Martinez wrote in his declaration. He went further, alleging that over the past year and a half Berry had “wrestled Maceo to the ground and forced him to ‘tap out.'”

A Los Angeles County judge signed a temporary restraining order the same day. Under the order, Berry must stay 100 yards away from Martinez, and her time with Maceo is limited to court-ordered visitation, reported as two days a week and every other weekend, until the next hearing. The judge declined to order sobriety monitoring, citing insufficient information.

Berry’s attorney, Marina Beck, fired back immediately. In a statement to People and USA Today, she called the filing “entirely meritless and deliberately misleading.”

“There is voluminous evidence, including numerous judicial rulings, that Olivier Martinez repeatedly violated court orders and interfered with necessary therapeutic and educational interventions to the detriment of his and Halle Berry’s minor son, Maceo,” Beck said. She added that Martinez has already been legally sanctioned for that conduct, and described his behavior as “erratic, possessive and violent.”

Berry’s Counterstrike: A Video and New Court Documents

On October 5, the fight escalated again. In new court documents obtained by Page Six, Berry flipped the narrative on its head.

Her filing claims that Maceo returns from time at his father’s house “angry and combative.” She alleges that Martinez’s “refusal to allow early interventions” has caused Maceo to fall behind in school, worsened his acting out behaviors, and damaged the relationship between mother and son.

Berry also claims Martinez has never accepted her relationship with her fiance Van Hunt, and has refused to let Maceo take part in family therapy with her and Hunt. She is asking the court to force Martinez to attend the court-ordered therapy sessions.

The judge appears to have listened to at least part of her case. After the October 5 filing, the court amended the temporary restraining order and clarified that Berry retains final decision-making authority over Maceo’s mental health care and education.

Perhaps most striking of all: Berry submitted a timestamped video she says captures what really happened on September 26. Her account of that night could not be more different from her ex’s.

According to Berry’s filing, she walked into Maceo’s room only to tell him to turn off the game. Then, she says, she went to the bathroom, sat down, and started recording him on her phone while he kept playing. When he noticed her filming, he walked toward the bathroom and grabbed her phone. From there, Berry says, the two began “playfully roughhousing,” the way they often do.

She denies ever putting her hands around his neck or restricting his breathing. She denies shouting “Who is dominant now?” And she denies yelling at him at all. She does admit saying, “You don’t have anything to prove,” as he pushed her.

Berry says her fiance Van Hunt came upstairs as things heated up and stepped between them. She says Maceo threatened to leave and go back to his father, and that she then texted Martinez pleading with him to help enforce boundaries with their son. She submitted still photos of Maceo wearing the VR goggles alongside the video as supporting evidence.

Martinez, for his part, has already answered Berry’s latest filing. In his response, reported by People, he asked the court to deny her requests. The two are scheduled to face off again in court on October 16.

A Decade of Bad Blood

To understand how things got this heated, you have to go back. Berry and Martinez married in July 2013 and welcomed Maceo that October. They separated in 2015, and their divorce dragged on for eight years before being finalized in 2023, with joint legal and physical custody and a $8,000-a-month child support order.

It has never been peaceful. Berry’s attorneys have pointed to Martinez’s infamous 2012 Thanksgiving altercation with Berry’s then boyfriend Gabriel Aubry, during a custody dispute over Berry’s daughter Nahla.

Martinez’s filing included an alleged message from Maceo after the September 26 incident, reading “Are u here please come,” asking his father to pick him up. Berry’s side says those messages don’t tell the whole story.

One legal expert urged the public to slow down. California family law attorney Christopher C. Melcher told People that a temporary restraining order “is not a determination on the merits,” describing it as a cooling off measure until a hearing can be held where actual findings could be made.

A Quiet Weekend Out Amid the Storm

In the middle of all this legal warfare, Berry was spotted doing what any mother would do: spending time with her son.

On Sunday, October 4, Berry and Van Hunt took Maceo to Sky Zone, an indoor trampoline park in Los Angeles, in photos obtained by Page Six. The trio was joined by some of Maceo’s friends. It was Maceo’s 13th birthday weekend, he turned 13 on October 5.

The sighting adds another layer to a story that has divided observers. One side sees an Oscar winner fighting to protect her relationship with her child. The other sees a father acting on what he believes is a real danger. The truth, as always, will be for the court to decide.

What Happens Next

The October 16 hearing is the next chapter. The judge will hear both sides, review the evidence including Berry’s video, and decide whether the temporary order should stand, be extended, or be thrown out. Custody terms could be revisited too.

One thing is certain: this fight is far from over. And the next two weeks will determine who the court believes.

If you found this story interesting, you may also like our coverage of Kim Kardashian holding North West back from fame, the truth behind Gigi Hadid and Bradley Cooper’s matching rings, and Anne Hathaway’s Verity crushing Tom Cruise’s Digger at the box office.

External sources: USA Today on the October 1 filing | People on Berry spending time with Maceo