Halle Berry seen with Van Hunt days before Monday’s restraining order hearing

Halle Berry was photographed with fiancé Van Hunt ahead of a restraining order hearing in her custody dispute with ex-husband Olivier Martinez.

Halle Berry surfaced publicly for the first time since responding in court, and the timing was not incidental.

PEOPLE reported that the 60-year-old actress was photographed Oct. 15 alongside fiancé Van Hunt, two weeks after a Los Angeles County judge partially granted Olivier Martinez’s request for a temporary restraining order covering him and their 13-year-old son, Maceo.

Martinez, 60, filed Oct. 1, alleging abuse across several years and describing a Sept. 26 incident in which he claims Berry grabbed their son by the neck. Hunt was reportedly present. The filing also includes what Martinez says are text exchanges from that period, including one in which Berry allegedly wrote that she felt terrible about what had happened the previous night.

Berry has denied everything. In an Oct. 5 declaration, she stated she has never abused Maceo in any form, identifying herself as a domestic violence survivor who works with others. “I am not a perpetrator of violence,” she wrote. “I would never hurt our child.”

The procedural fight has centered on whose account the court hears. Martinez argued in Oct. 12 filings that Maceo wants to provide his own version of events. Berry objected the following day, contending Martinez was dismissing other eyewitnesses, including Hunt and her 18-year-old daughter Nahla, who previously submitted a declaration stating she has never seen her mother physically abuse her brother.

Her objection went further than procedure. Berry urged the court against giving substantial weight to testimony from what she characterized as a coached and manipulated child.

The judge ruled against her. Maceo will testify, though his account is restricted to the restraining order request rather than the broader custody question. That hearing is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 19.

Berry currently has unsupervised visits twice during the week and every other weekend following a court-ordered mediation session Oct. 14. She is seeking to restore the 50/50 arrangement established in August 2023.

Martinez’s attorney, Patrick Baghdaserians, says his client’s focus is his son’s welfare. Berry’s attorney, Marina Beck, has called the filing meritless and deliberately misleading.

The two had agreed to co-parenting therapy in May 2024.