Robert De Niro may come out of 2020 with only half of the income he’s used to making in a year. Before we rush to launch a crowdfunding campaign, let’s be clear that that would still leave him $7.5 million ahead of the game. Hands up if you’d happily weather that hardship. The drama over the actor’s income stems from his 2018 divorce from ex-wife Grace Hightower and De Niro’s legal motion to reduce the amount of support he pays in the wake of financial losses due to COVID-19.Lawyers for De Niro argue that coronavirus lockdowns have hurt his investments in the restaurant franchise Nobu and in the Greenwich Hotel. Both businesses have brought in little to no revenue thanks to the ongoing pandemic. The restaurant chain, said his legal team, lost nearly $5 million in April and May alone. De Niro had to borrow money from his partners to make business ends meet “because he doesn’t have the cash,”
claimed his lawyer.In light of the resulting penny-pinching (where ‘penny’ equals an American Express Platinum card) De Niro has had to cut Hightower’s monthly credit limit from $100,000 to a measly $50,000. Their divorce agreement states that De Niro is obligated to pay her $1 million per year — though only if he’s making $15 million plus. If he earns less, he pays less. “His accounts and business manager,” argued the actor’s lawyer, “says that the best case for Mr. De Niro, if everything starts to turn around this year, … he is going to be lucky if he makes $7.5 million this year.”Wow. That IS lucky.Hightower’s own legal eagles are fighting back, however, arguing that “Mr. De Niro has used the COVID pandemic... to stick it to his wife financially… I’m not a believer that a man who has an admitted worth of $500 million and makes $30 million a year, all of a sudden in March he needs to cut down by 50 percent.”The judge, while requiring the actor to pay $75,000 to Hightower so that she could rent a summer house for her and their two children, sided with De Niro, approving his belt-tightening measures — at least temporarily.[video_embed id='1928722']Before you go: New York celebrities getting in on the "Stay Home" campaign[/video_embed]
