Robert De Niro is reportedly working at an “unsustainable pace” to fund his ex-wife’s luxury lifestyle. De Niro’s divorce has led to him taking every job offered to him, his lawyer had claimed.
The actor’s lawyer Caroline Strauss appeared in court last Friday (April 16), per the Independent; saying De Niro has had to “take every project that comes along” and “work six-day weeks, 12-hour days”.
“Mr De Niro is 77 years old,” Krauss said during a virtual hearing for the ongoing divorce case against Grace Hightower. “While he loves his craft, he should not be forced to work at this prodigious pace because he has to.
“When does that stop? When does he get the opportunity to not take every project that comes along and not work six-day weeks, 12-hour days so he can keep pace with Ms Hightower’s thirst for Stella McCartney? Mr De Niro could get sick tomorrow, and the party’s over.”
As part of the prenuptial agreement brought in before the couple married in 1997, De Niro will have to pay his ex-wife $1m (£716,000) a year; so long as he makes more than $15m (£10.7m). However, the pair have been arguing for three years about how much he should pay Hightower until the terms of the prenup come into effect.
While De Niro is worth about $500m, his lawyers have said that he has struggled financially in recent years. In July 2020, they claimed that he had to borrow from business partners to pay investors $500,000 (£358,000) because “he doesn’t have the cash”.
De Niro and Hightower share two children. A 9-year-old daughter whom they had through a surrogate and a 23-year-old son.