The Kim Kardashian and Kanye West Divorce has been a hot topic for some time now. Two of Hollywood’s most rich and powerful are clashing heads in Court over their divorce, their assets, and their children.
There is a new two-part documentary that goes over their divorce; one from Kanye’s perspective and the other from Kim’s. I sat down to watch both parts and uncover the nitty gritty of the family law field from Hollywood’s rich and famous.
Here are my thoughts below:
- This is a standard high conflict divorce. Although they have all the money in the world to find the best to do lawyers and endlessly fight. They have found themselves in the same position as us normal folk in the family law system – they cannot agree on anything from asset division, to co-parenting, to timeshare. Only one parent in their situation, as I could see it, took the children’s best interest into account. From my perspective, this was not out of the ordinary or some groundbreaking divorce, it was simply the unfortunate situation all of us often find ourselves in. We just absolutely cannot co-parent with each other for the best interests of children.
- Another interesting aspect of Kimye’s divorce was the bifurcation portion. Bifurcation means to split off the issues into their own trials. Bifurcations often occur in the status of the divorce – meaning you can file a motion to bifurcate status. In plain terms, it means you can be divorced without being divorced; essentially you can get a divorce date without having finalized all the asset split, decided on final custody, determined support, etc. A status only judgment once a bifurcation occurs is to become a single person once again with the promise to the Court that the issues will continue to be dealt with. Bifurcation requests are more common than you think and often a helpful tool if you want a divorce date in what you anticipate being a long court battle for the remaining issues.
- The documentary doesn’t go through all the Court proceedings and from what I can tell the intricate filings of both Kim and Kanye’s attorneys, however, I thought this documentary painted one party in an extremely poor light over the other. As we all are well aware, the Kardashian brand has been built into an empire, carefully crafting the Kardashian-Jenner image. The documentary painted Kanye into a mentally unstable lunatic. From what we have all seen in the media, Kanye IS mentally unstable and rambles things to the public that are detrimental to not only his self-image but the children as well. Again, unfortunately, this is not an uncommon issue in the Family Law System; we often find ourselves dealing with Opposing Party’s who are struggling with mental health or undiagnosed personality disorders and recognize that the children in that parents’ care are not in the best interest of the children. But how do you move forward with those issues and protecting your children? As I’m sure Kim’s lawyers did, motions can be filed, mental evaluations can be requested, and mediation must be gone through to bring to the Court’s attention that the other parent must seek help before caring for their children.
- The last issue I found extremely interesting in the documentary was the loss of Kanye’s brand deals with his wild and unpredictable behavior. When calculating not only child support but spousal support, base pay, as well as commissions, bonuses, royalties, etc. are factored into the guideline to give us a monthly amount but was Kanye’s loss of brand deals a tactic to lower his monthly child support? This is a tricky situation where we would have to show the loss of brand deals and guaranteed income was done purposefully in an attempt to skirt your support obligations. If that can be proven, you can have the other party imputed with income from their most recent employment. A party cannot purposefully or knowingly leave a job or be terminated from a job for the purpose of lowering support. A court can impute that party with wages that they have made in the past or that they are capable of making currently.
Overall, on the surface level of this documentary, we see two of Hollywood’s biggest battling out to save their self-images/brands in the divorce case of the ages. However, I viewed it as a run of the mill high conflict divorce case with unknowns at every turn, but the overwhelming desire to protect the children and get out alive. Kim and Kanye’s divorce may not be so different from your own and we should handle them with the poise, grace, and determination to do what’s right similar to Kim’s Lawyers.