Photo: Kevin Mazur/VF23/WireImage for Vanity Fair
On September 21, Sophie Turner fired a powerful shot in her split from Joe Jonas: She filed a petition in Manhattan federal court demanding that their two children return to England. Jonas, who filed for divorce from Turner in Florida a few weeks prior, had engaged in “wrongful detention” of their daughters in the States, she alleged. On October 10, the couple came to a temporary custody agreement that will see the children spending time in both the U.S. and the U.K. Following an October 4–7 “productive mediation,” court documents obtained by People say that the children will be with Turner from October 9–21. They go to Jonas for October 21–November 2. Then, they’re heading back to Turner until the 22nd, at which time they will return to Jonas until December 16. Finally, the temporary agreement states that they will spend the holidays with Turner — staying with her through January 7.
After marrying on May 1, 2019, in Las Vegas, and then in France that June, the Game of Thrones star and her musician husband hadn’t set down roots in either country because of their busy careers (Jonas is on a 20-country tour and Turner is working on a new TV show). However, Turner claimed that changed over Christmas of last year. The duo agreed to find their “forever home” in England, pick a school for their 3-year-old daughter, and permanently settle there. The Jonas-Turner clan moved to England in April 2023, renting until they could purchase the “beautiful country property” of their dreams, she claimed. Turner insists that the girls’ lives are in England: They have family and friends, “cultural activities” and playdates, and doctors and dentists.
The kids left England in August to travel with Jonas on his U.S. tour, but this was meant to be temporary — until Turner’s U.K. work commitments wrapped, she argued. But Jonas wrongly changed his tune after hitting her with divorce papers, she claimed. When they met on September 17 to talk about their separation, Turner discussed their previously laid plan for the kids to return to England. Jonas was intractable, Turner alleged, and “refuses to return the passports to the Mother and refuses to send the children home to England with the Mother.”
Turner’s filing quickly subsumed celebrity observers, as she petitioned under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction — which sounds super-serious, understandably, as it includes the words “child abduction.” But was Turner actually accusing Jonas of kidnapping, or was this just a legal proceeding in what could well be a lengthy custody battle? Even more confusing: Less than one week after Turner’s opening salvo, she and Jonas filed paperwork indicating that they agreed to keep the kids around New York City for the time being. Months later, Turner and Jonas reached a custody agreement. Attorneys for each party requested a U.S. district judge to dismiss the federal lawsuit on January 16, bringing the international battle to an end. Their divorce has yet to be finalized. Vulture spoke with several longtime matrimonial attorneys about what this all means.
Buckle up, because this is incredibly confusing. Couples (or other partnerships) duke out child-custody cases in the jurisdictions where the kids permanently reside, but when there’s a dispute over the location of children’s permanent home, a court will ultimately make a determination. The process gets even more complicated when this residency dispute involves different countries, as a person can go to a court for a decision on the kids’ permanent residence. Once the permanent residence is decided, custody proceedings will unfold in that jurisdiction. “What’s going to be decided in federal court is where the children’s home is,” explained Nancy Chemtob, a leading New York City matrimonial attorney who counts Mary-Kate Olsen among her high-profile clientele. “The first thing that happens is deciding whether either of them have the right to go to England, or stay in the U.S.,” Chemtob said. “Once they decide that, then they would decide whether to go to the [matrimonial] court in Miami and have the custody case there, or England and have the custody case there, or New York.”
“It might mean that they really are going to try to see what they can do to resolve things,” said Bonnie Rabin, a top New York City matrimonial attorney. That’s to say, Jonas and Turner may have decided not to turn this dispute, or at least this part of it, into an international mess. It’s also possible that Turner realized there might not be a solid foundation for claiming the kids’ permanent residence is in the U.K. “If they were older, and had been enrolled in school, that would be indicative of shared parental intent to have them be … wherever they are in the U.K., where they are,” Rabin explained. But with young children, “it’s a little hard to show what the intent was with objective criteria, so it would be a harder case to show that other than they were thinking about it, that they had actually taken real steps and had a true agreement to have the children moved to the U.K.”
Unless there are obvious signs of bad parenting, courts generally favor both parents having 50-50 custody, attorneys said. Courts try to put kids’ needs first in making a decision. “The big concept is: What’s in the best interest of the children?” said Michael Stutman, who has chaired the New York City Bar Association matrimonial law committee. “One of the things a court looks at is, how have these two people been handling their children in the past?” Has the mother or father been the main caregiver? Where were the kids most frequently? What were things like before the relationship imploded? Sometimes, courts will engage in a “psychological or psychiatric forensic evaluation of the parties and the children” to make that determination. “It’s a pretty in-depth and intrusive inquiry that can take a long, long time — and when I say long, long time, I’m talking, you know, perhaps a year or more,” Stutman said. Even after an evaluation, the process can take just as long, as matrimonial judges are in short supply in New York City.
“A lot,” Stutman said. “It’s not just a matter of assets — it’s also a matter of income. And it’s a matter of the lifestyle of the children and what they would have expected had the parents stayed together.” In other words, child support for rich kids would likely be enough to support whatever luxe lifestyle they’re accustomed to. That said, the kids are quite young, so it could be a bit lower, Chemtob said. Notably, child support doesn’t just come down to who’s wealthier. Courts will look at which parent spends more time with the kids. Theoretically, Turner could be in a position to pay child support if Jonas gets more time with the kids, Chemtob said.
Jonas’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did Turner’s attorneys. Following the temporary custody agreement, the two shared a statement in People on October 11 saying, “After a productive and successful mediation, we have agreed that the children will spend time equally in loving homes in both the U.S. and the U.K. We look forward to being great co-parents.”
This joint statement marks a change in tone from previous public statements. In a statement provided to Today on September 21 following Turner’s petition, Jonas’s rep said that he thought the couple “had reached an understanding that they would work together towards an amicable co-parenting setup” during a meeting. “Less than 24 hours later, Sophie advised that she wanted to take the children permanently to the U.K. Thereafter, she demanded via this filing that Joe hand over the children’s passports so that she could take them out of the country immediately. If he complies, Joe will be in violation of the Florida Court order,” the statement said. “Joe is seeking shared parenting with the kids so that they are raised by both their mother and father, and is of course also okay with the kids being raised both in the U.S. and the U.K. The children were born in the U.S. and have spent the vast majority of their lives in the U.S. They are American citizens.”
“This is an unfortunate legal disagreement about a marriage that is sadly ending. When language like ‘abduction’ is used, it is misleading at best, and a serious abuse of the legal system at worst. The children were not abducted,” the statement continued. “His wish is that Sophie reconsider her harsh legal position and move forward in a more constructive and private manner. His only concern is the well-being of his children.”
In a September 25 court filing, it seemed the dispute had cooled, at least for now. Both sides agreed that they wouldn’t move the kids out of the New York City area until the court makes any further decisions. The judge signed off on their agreement.
Lawyers for Turner and Jonas requested a U.S. district judge to dismiss the lawsuit on January 16. The new filing cited a U.K. court-approved consent order finalized last week, which resolves the “parenting aspects of this matter,” according to court documents obtained by USA Today. A judge signed the consent order on January 17, putting an end to the international legal battle.
This is a developing story.