David Geffen was continued by his ex-husband, Donovan Michaels, who says that the billionaire film producer practiced his vulnerabilities as a young gay black man in the reception system and trapped him in a manipulated and abusive relationship.
Geffen, 82, and Michaels, 32, met in 2016 Seekingarrangements.comA dating site where wealthy individuals often look for relationships with younger singles in exchange for a form of compensation, according to the complaint. The night they met, the media tycoon would have paid $ 10,000 in Michaels to have sex with him.
The couple continued their relationship and married in 2023, minus a contract contract, according to the complaint. In May this year, Geffen asked for divorce.
Now, Michaels, whose legal name is David Armstrong, continues Geffen for breach of contract, saying that the billionaire had promised to take care of him financially but left him near Broke and homeless. The trial compares their relationship to the intrigue of the film “Trading places”, saying that Geffen used Michaels as a trophy to show his rich and famous friends.
“It was a sick game,” said the complaint. “Michaels has become an accessory in Geffen’s theater of virtue, paraded as proof of the supposed geffen altruism, while being used in private as a sexual goods.”
Geffen’s lawyer, Patty Glaser, rejected Michaels’ allegations.
“There was no contract – Express, written, oral or implicit – that never existed,” she said in a press release to Times. “We will defend vigorously and with justice against this false pathetic trial.”
The 33 -page complaint is full of explosive claims on the exploits of the richest man in the entertainment industry.
Geffen has an estimated net value of 8.8 billion dollarsAccording to Forbes. He has raised his wealth as a music producer and films, signing major artists, notably Eagles and Joni Mitchell and Co-foundant DreamWorks Pictures, which produced successful films such as “Saving Private Ryan” and “Shrek”.
Michaels entered the Michigan family care system at 18 months old and grew up in various reception and group houses where he has regularly suffered physical and emotional violence, according to the complaint. He moved to Florida at 19 and relied on exotic dance and X videos to get financially.
The trial claims that Geffen expected Michaels to consume drugs such as cocaine and molly alongside the friends of Geffen on the billionaire 450 feet superyacht The rising sun.
The complaint alleges that Geffen physically appreciated his sexual partners and caused them pain. This type of sexual behavior sparked the trauma of Michaels’ childhood and caused him digestive problems, headaches and the need to isolate, according to the complaint.
The trial also alleges that the billionaire “criticized all aspects of the appearance of Michaels” and that the simple existence of embodied hair would lift the anger of Geffen. The media tycoon would have said to Michaels “where to go, what to wear, what to read, what to look at and what to say” and forced him to submit to large painful cosmetic treatments.
In addition, Geffen would have prevented Michaels from continuing to continue his modeling career, saying that he had to be constantly available.
Michaels says that he began to reassess his life and his relationship after taking the treatment of drug addiction earlier this year. He then approached her husband and said that he “wanted a new start in which he could stand in the shoulder with Geffen as an equal without dynamics of power that existed”.
According to the complaint, Geffen then cut Michaels, asked for a divorce and denied the financial support of Michaels “proportionate to his lifestyle” and his share of assets acquired during their cohabitation. While the media magnate attended his colleague Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s marriage to Italy last month, he ordered Michaels to leave his New York residence, according to the complaint.
Michaels requests compensatory damages and a judicial determination of its rights under an alleged oral agreement concluded with Geffen. His lawyers argue that this should give him the right to his subsistence costs covered for the rest of his life and to an equal division of all the properties subject to the agreement.
“While Geffen is held to the public as an extraordinarily charitable charitable man whose foundation gives millions and millions of dollars to plea and support groups for homeless and disadvantaged populations,” said the complaint, “he simultaneously strives to make the Michaels deplevriss and without-the-the-day”.
