Halle Berry denied Olivier Martinez's choking claim and asked the court to restore 50/50 custody of their son.

A temporary restraining order in family court is an emergency order entered on one side's filing. It is not a finding that the allegations are true. Berry's response puts her version in the record: TMZ reported she says it was playful roughhousing over a VR headset, that she never put her hands on the boy's neck, and that she has timestamped video. Martinez has answered back. The judge has not decided who is right; Oct. 16 is the next hearing.

TMZ, People, and Page Six reported that on Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, Halle Berry filed a lengthy response in Los Angeles Superior Court to Olivier Martinez's petition to change their custody agreement for their 13-year-old son from joint legal and physical custody to temporary sole custody for Martinez, with visitation for Berry. Martinez had been granted a temporary restraining order last week after alleging that on Sept. 26 Berry got angry while the boy was playing a virtual reality game, jumped on him, and put him in a headlock, choking him. Page Six reported Martinez also alleged that over the last year and a half Berry had wrestled the boy to the ground and forced him to "tap out." Berry denies the allegations.

In her filing, TMZ reported, Berry says she went into the boy's room to tell him it was time to stop playing, then began recording him on her phone; he grabbed the phone and the two started "playfully roughhousing" as they often do. She says she never placed her hands around his neck, never choked him or restrained his breathing, and never yelled "Who is dominant now?" as Martinez claimed. Berry says the wrestling escalated, that her fiancé, musician Van Hunt, stepped between them, and that when the boy left for Martinez's home there were no marks on him. TMZ reported she says she has timestamped video that backs her account. "I would never hurt our child," Berry said in the filing, adding that she is a domestic violence victim and advocate, not a perpetrator. Her daughter submitted a declaration saying she never heard Berry make the racially charged comments Martinez alleged.

Page Six reported Berry also alleges Martinez's "continued attempts to align" the boy with him have left their son "angry and combative" when he returns from his father's custodial time, that Martinez has resisted early interventions for the boy's behavioral and neurodivergent issues, and that he has refused family therapy that includes Hunt. She asks the court to reinstate the 50/50 agreement and order Martinez to attend court-ordered therapy. Berry's attorney, Marina Beck, told Page Six that Martinez's filing is "entirely meritless and deliberately misleading" and that he has already been sanctioned for violating court orders. TMZ reported Martinez filed new papers Monday evening saying Berry "deliberately" misrepresented his conduct on the boy's mental health treatment, and People reported he asked the court to deny her requests.

TMZ reported that after Berry's filing, the judge amended the temporary restraining order to make clear Berry keeps final decision-making authority over the boy's mental health and education, the arrangement the two agreed to in 2024, at least until a hearing set for Oct. 16. Berry and Martinez, both 60, married in 2013, split in 2015, and took eight years to finalize their divorce, Page Six reported. This is a civil family-court dispute; no criminal charge has been filed against either parent, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.