SALON

Tuesday, Nov 27, 2012 6:28 PM UTC

Halle Berry still has terrible taste in men

The actress's track record with domestic violence continues

By

Topics: domestic violence, Halle Berry, Oliver Martinez, Gabriel Aubry,

Halle Berry still has terrible taste in menGabriel Aubrey, Olivier Martinez and Hally Berry (Credit: AP/Reuters)

There are a few things we’ve learned over the course of Halle Berry’s two-decade-long Hollywood career. We know that she’s a former beauty queen who’s also a genuinely nuanced actress, a Bond girl and an Oscar and Golden Globe winner. It’s also clear she’s  a woman with one of the most consistently tumultuous personal lives of any public figure in recent memory.

The latest twist in her family drama began last week, in a Thanksgiving brawl in her driveway between Gabriel Aubry, her ex-partner and father of her 4-year-old daughter, Nahla, and Berry’s actor fiancé Olivier Martinez. Aubry was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor battery after the incident, and Berry filed an emergency protective order against him. The actress has been engaged in a bitter, long-running custody dispute with Aubry, and earlier this month lost her fight to move with her daughter to France.

Then on Monday, Aubry fired back, winning his own restraining order against Martinez. Aubry has released photos of his pummeled face and black eye as evidence of what he claims is Martinez’s savagery, and says he also suffered a broken rib. According to Aubry’s account, Martinez suddenly appeared and attacked him when he dropped off his daughter at the house, and then told him, “We called the cops … you’re going to tell them that you’re the one who attacked me, or I’m going to kill you.” Aubry made no mention of any threats when he initially spoke to the police after the incident.

That two of the men Berry’s been romantically involved with should wind up in fisticuffs seems at this point another sad punctuation mark in a life marked by fighting. In a 2005 interview, she admitted, “Domestic violence is something I’ve known about since I was a child. My mother was a victim of it.” And she added, “Early on in my life I made choices, and I chose men that were abusive because that was what I knew growing up.”

Berry’s first marriage, to baseball player David Justice, ended in divorce and a restraining order. In 2001, his ex-fiancé Nicole Foster filed suit against him for emotional distress and domestic violence. Berry’s second marriage, to singer Eric Benét, also ended in divorce court, this time with her husband doing a stint in rehab for sex addiction. He now refers to his condition at the time as not addiction, but rather “making some stupid-ass, stupid-ass mistakes.” In between her marriages, Berry pleaded no contest in a 2000 hit-and-run incident and was ordered to perform 200 hours of community service.

Which brings us to the more recent situation, and a relationship that fell apart with Berry making claims that she has “serious concerns for her daughter’s well-being while in the care of her father,” and a holiday drop-off of a little girl that culminated in black eyes and bruises.

In 2010, Berry talked to CNN about her volunteer work with a Los Angeles women’s shelter. “I think I’ve spent my adult life dealing with the sense of low self-esteem that sort of implanted in me. Somehow I felt not worthy. Before I’m ‘Halle Berry,’ I’m little Halle … a little girl growing in this environment that damaged me … I’ve spent my adult life trying to really heal from that.” Now she has a little girl of her own who’s growing up in the shadow of violence. And the healing that still needs to happen is no longer just little Halle’s.

Mary Elizabeth Williams

Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of "Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream." Follow her on Twitter: @embeedub. More Mary Elizabeth Williams.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 10 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
174 points175 points | 134 comments
vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
162 points163 points | 112 comments
vote
Judge tells lesbian couple to separate or lose kids: "unmarried sexual relationships -- including straight ones – can be grounds for losing child custody"
69 points70 points | 12 comments
vote
Anonymous rallies behind Kaitlyn Hunt
22 points23 points | 31 comments
vote
Developers evict historic women’s shelter to build luxury hotel - The 104-yr-old Anna Louise Inn has ended its 2-year legal battle with a Fortune 500 company & will now move. Many view the victory of the insurance company over a community touchstone as a major blow to the city.
25 points26 points | 2 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations