Just a day after actress Kelly Rutherford was due to send her son Hermes, 8, and daughter Helena, 6, back to Monaco to live with their father, the former Gossip Girl star has released a statement saying that she is refusing to do so.
Explaining her decision to People magazine, the 46-year-old said: “These past three years waiting for my children to come home have been very difficult. My children were forced to leave the United States in 2012 when they were only two and five years old.”
The children were returned to Kelly in May, when she was granted sole custody for a limited period while former husband Daniel Giersch organised a new US visa from Monaco.
While Kelly has taken her plight to two US courts since, seeking permanent sole custody of her two children, both courts have turned her case away on the grounds that they had no jurisdiction – which has proved pivotal to Kelly’s latest move.
“The fact that neither state is claiming jurisdiction, means no state in this country is currently protecting my children. It also means that no state in this country currently requires me to send the children away. Hence, I have decided that I cannot lawfully send my children away from the United States to live in a foreign country,” she added defiantly.
She said that she is hoping this move will bring the painful ordeal of the last three years to an end, for once and for all.
