Just three years ago, Robin Thicke was shamelessly begging for Paula Patton’s forgiveness, but a lot has changed since then. For the past few months, they’ve been locked in a custody battle that seems to only be getting messier, with the latest incident on Thursday involving the cops.
The dissolution of their marriage, to the public at least, dates back to their separation in early 2014. Amid rumors that he’d been unfaithful, Thicke went on a pathetic apology tour and released a creepy (perhaps the creepiest) album, titled Paula, devoted to his then-estranged wife and former high school sweetheart. At the time, Thicke frequently played himself hard, thinking he could maybe win Patton back (or at least making it seem that way for publicity) by pulling stunts like serenading her from afar with his song “Get Her Back” at the 2014 Billboard Awards. He professed his love again at the BET Awards that year, telling his invisible wife, “I miss you and I’m sorry.”
It didn’t work. The album was bad. And Patton did the smart thing and kept silent much of the time, letting him fail spectacularly on his own, a beautiful thing. Then in October 2014, after months of separation, Patton filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. She’s barely spoken about their breakup in the press and when she does, it’s been amicable: “We’ve known each other since we were teenagers. All I can tell you is there’s a deep love there, always was, and always will be,” she told Vanity Fair in 2014. “I’ve grown a lot. It’s been a long year and a lot of challenges. I live in a place of gratitude [and am] thankful for everything I have,” Patton she said to Meredith Viera nearly a year later.
But all does not appear to be well now. In January, after Patton accused Thicke of threatening and assaulting her, a judge awarded her with temporary custody of their 6-year-old son Julian and issued a temporary domestic abuse restraining order against Thicke. As part of a DCFS investigation, he admitted to “light spanking,” stating in court papers: “On a very rare occasion and only as a last resort, I will use light spanking, 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.” There’s also reportedly been a DCFS investigation into Patton for alleged “emotional abuse.”
The latest development, according to TMZ, is as follows: a custody exchange that was scheduled to happen with a court-appointed monitor at a park in Malibu on Thursday went awry:
Sources connected with Robin tell TMZ the singer was aware Paula has a restraining order but he never came close to her. The sources say Paula was an hour late and when she arrived she refused to give Julian to the monitor.
Sources connected with Paula say Robin violated the restraining order and was feet from Paula when she arrived with her son. They say Julian decided he didn’t want to go with his dad and asked her to call 911.
Patton’s team reportedly called police and left the scene with Julian. Based on the ugly series of events so far, this will likely not be the end of it.