Family Law

The Model and the Millionaire do Divorce Celebrity Style

By ckramer

Friends were stunned when the model Stephanie Seymour and the millionaire many times over Peter Brant were married without a prenuptial agreement, according to a recent article in the New York Times.

Donald Trump was among those surprised when the two married without a prenup. ?It?s a lot easier to get done when you love each other than when you hate each other. And they hate each other. It?s a mess.?

The divorce that has been going on since 2009 has featured a wide range of accusations and bitter disputes. Seymour claimed that Brant was too controlling, and Brant claimed that she was unfaithful and that she had abused alcohol and drugs.

As the 15-year marriage dissolves, the high-brow Connecticut community of Greenwich where they live is watching the ordeal, in the words of the New York Times article reporting on the divorce, as though it were a car crash they wish would go away.

Each side of the power couple met in court this week, to continue their divorce battle. In the courtroom, Seymour and Brant avoided eye contact, as she sat calmly and he fidgeted with paperwork.

This wasn?t the first time they?d been in court. Since Seymour?s March 2009 filing, the couple or their lawyers have been in court five times previously. There was a charge that one of Brant?s security guards wouldn?t let Seymour into the family home, which was later dropped. Mandatory drug testing is ongoing, as mandated by the court. Three different judges have heard portions of the case.

It was the drug testing that was under scrutiny in their recent trip to divorce court. Brant was arguing that he should be able to discontinue the testing, and that he was ?clean as a whistle.? The judge turned down the request, offering that it wouldn?t be prudent to change the rules of the divorce at that point in the proceedings.

The judge was also concerned that the estranged couple was getting off track.
Brant vs. Brant is scheduled to go to trial in late September. With a volume and grandiosity that the public has come to expect from the rich, powerful and famous, the two will have already spent millions of dollars on lawyers? fees by the time the case goes to trial. There are thousands and thousands of pages of paperwork that have been generated in the case.

Their wealthy, famous friends have had to take sides.

Alberto Mugrabi is an art collector and friend, who, in addition to Trump, has looked on the divorce with a hint of melancholy. ?It?s a sad occurrence,? he said. ?What is amazing to me is how people who have kids can kill each other in a public arena. I just don?t understand it.?

The art dealer Tony Shafrazi was best man at their happy wedding in 1995. ?We danced until 7 a.m.,? he said. ?It was a very moving, beautiful thing.?

The two met while in New York City in the early 90s. Seymour was a star of the gossip column, dating rock stars like Axl Rose and making headlines. Brant was a millionaire who made his money from making paper and investing in high-priced real estate. He was also a major art collector, and friend of artists Andy Warhol and Julian Schnabel.

A high-profile courtship and marriage gave way to a peaceful existence in Connecticut, that they hid well in advance of their divorce. Many friends were surprised by the filing in 2009.

?It was a shock to me,? said Shafrazi. ?We had Christmas in St. Bart?s and there was no sign of trouble.?

Full post as published by The Divorce Blog on August 28, 2010 (boomark / email).