Halle Berry Calls Child Support Payments to Ex Gabriel Aubry ‘Extortion’

Halle Berry is sharing her thoughts on the child support system. After posting a provocative quote on Instagram, Berry started a spicy conversation in her comments where she suggested that her ex’s lifestyle is being funded by her child support payments. The 54-year-old Oscar winner has been paying her ex Gabriel Aubrey $16,000 a month in child support to help support their 12-year-old daughter Nahla since 2014. “It takes great strength every day to pay it. and BTW it’s wrong and it’s extortion!” she wrote underneath the post, per E! Online.

The actress, whose net worth reportedly ranges between $80 and $90 million, says the “outdated” system is being corrupted to allow people to take money from their past spouses and partners for themselves. “The way many laws are set up, people are allowed to USE children in order to be awarded money to live a lifestyle that not only did they not earn, but that is way above and beyond the child’s reasonable needs and that is ‘THE WRONG’ and where I see the abuse,” she said. “I can say I’m living it every day and I can tell you it’s hard. I do totally understand the feelings of those men who feel they are and have been taken advantage of by the system.”

“I’ve been paying it for a decade now. I feel if a woman or man is having to pay support that is way more than the reasonable needs to help SUPPORT the child, I think that is wrong!” She continued, “I understand some parents (man or woman) may need help, but I also feel in these modern times both men and women have the responsibility to financially take care of their children and work hard and make every effort to do so.”

Berry continues to prove a mother’s work is never done, as the saying goes. The star also recently discussed how she’s had to dismantle elementary sexist teachings in her son Maceo, who she shares with her ex-husband Olivier Martinez. “I have a 7-year-old son, and I have realized what my job is in raising him,” she said at an HFPA panel. “If we want to have a future that’s different, that is where it starts.”

“I’ve had to really break that down for him and give him a new perspective, and challenge those thoughts and ask him to identify where that comes from, and if he believes that or not and challenge what he’s subconsciously getting from somewhere. I can tell that because we’re having those conversations he is going to grow as a deep thinker on the subject. He’s going to be determined not to just accept it. I keep challenging him all the time, like ‘Well, why is that a ‘girl color?’”