ROBERT DE NIRO IS HURTING FOR DINERO!
Wins court fight to slash ex-wife’s credit limit due to COVID cash crisis
SCREEN legend Robert De Niro claims he’s so broke he had to slash estranged wife Grace Hightower’s credit card limit, but she charges the raging bully is shamefully using the coronavirus financial freeze to stiff her out of her rightful chunk of his $500 million fortune.
Furious Grace, 65, dashed to court after the 76-yearold Godfather star slashed her AmEx credit card limit from $100,000 to $50Gs a month and also banned her from an upstate New York compound where he’s quarantining during the pandemic.
Her cries fell on deaf ears when Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Matthew Cooper issued a temporary ruling, saying: “I am not requiring at this point that Mr. De Niro restore the credit card to $100,000; $50,000 seems to be certainly enough to avoid irreparable harm.”
However, he ordered the 76-year-old star to cough up $75,000 so Grace can find an upstate summer home to share with their kids, Helen, 8, and Elliot, 22.
Before the ruling, her lawyer, Kevin McDonough, said De Niro rakes in $30 million a year and called his crying poor “nonsense.”
“I’m not a believer that all of a sudden in March he needs to cut down [spousal support] by 50 percent and ban her from the house,” the legal eagle says.
“Mr. De Niro has used the COVID pandemic … to stick it to his wife financially.”
But his legal mouthpiece,
Caroline Krauss, says the pandemic shutdowns have financially devastated his Nobu eatery chain and Greenwich Hotel and put the filming of his latest flick on hold.
Krauss insists Nobu lost nearly $5 million in April and May and De Niro had to borrow $500,000 to repay investors “because he doesn’t have the cash.”
She also says he’s only required to pay his wife of 21 years $1 million annually if he’s making $15 million or more — and this year, he’ll be lucky to earn half that.
Financial expert John Lieberman notes the actor “absolutely” could be cashstrapped, saying: “You can be worth $300 million and not have any cash.”
But an insider points out that Nobu eateries “received $28 million” in government loans “to stay afloat” and De Niro is known as a “tightwad” in Tinseltown.
“Some people in his circle think it’s his way of keeping Grace’s hands off his hardearned money.”