As Paula Patton and Robin Thicke spar over custody, he’s reportedly cleared in abuse investigation
Paula Patton and Robin Thicke have been back in court fighting over custody of their son, with Patton accusing Thicke of abusing the boy and a judge reportedly rejecting her request that her ex’s visitation be restricted.
Julian Thicke, 6, told school officials that his dad had spanked him excessively, and after the school passed that information along on Jan. 3, the L.A. County Department of Child and Family Services opened an investigation into the matter, TMZ reported Thursday.
Patton then restricted her ex’s access to Julian — they’d had joint custody — and filed an emergency request that father and son have only monitored daytime visits, the website said.
Patton’s request was denied by a judge at a hearing Thursday morning.
DCFS interviewed Patton once and Julian twice and was to have interviewed Thicke on Thursday afternoon, TMZ said. On Friday, a source told Entertainment Tonight the department had cleared Thicke of any “wrongdoing,” but said the paperwork would take 20 days to process.
“On a very rare occasion and only as a last resort, I will use light spanking,” Thicke said in court documents obtained by Us Weekly, “but it is consistent with the law — open hand on the butt. This is the type of discipline to which Paula and I agreed during our marriage.”
In those documents, Thicke speculated that Patton’s accusations against him stemmed from “residual anger towards me because I and my family would not permit her or her family to attend the funeral of my father.” Thicke said his ex and his dad “did not have a positive relationship” and claimed Patton just wanted “additional public exposure” at the funeral.
After the couple split in February 2014, Thicke appeared to take it very hard, saying publicly that June that he was trying to woo her back. Didn’t work — she filed papers that October, they reached an agreement in March 2015 and the divorce was final the next month.
Thicke’s father, Alan Thicke, died unexpectedly a month ago, and Patton was not invited to her former father-in-law’s Dec. 20 funeral. Julian attended, as did the “Blurred Lines” singer’s girlfriend, April Love Geary, to whom he’s been linked since late 2015.
On the day of the funeral, Patton shared her feelings about her former father-in-law via Instagram.
“I knew Alan since I was 15 years old and he had a tremendous effect on my life,” she wrote. “I loved and respected him so much! So many great memories and laughs together. We will miss him so much! His grandson is quite sure he is still here with us in spirit.”
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