EXCLUSIVE: Kelly Rutherford coughs up $15k to regain rights to her Gossip Girl residual paychecks that she lost in Chapter 7 bankruptcy - months after losing six-year custody battle

The actress is a step closer to wrapping up her bankruptcy after reaching a compromise to regain rights to residual payments from her role
Rutherford lost custody of her two children to her ex-husband after a years-long vicious court battle
The Gossip Girl star filed for bankruptcy in 2013 after spending some $1.5 million on legal fees

Published: 20:47 GMT, 12 August 2016 | Updated: 22:46 GMT, 12 August 2016

View
comments

Actress Kelly Rutherford has moved a step closer to wrapping up her bankruptcy, after cutting a $15,000 deal to regain the rights to residual payments from her Gossip Girl role.

Rutherford filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2013 after years of battling her husband, German entrepreneur Daniel Giersch, for custody over their two children.

According to court documents seen by Daily Mail Online, under the new deal Rutherford will pay $15,000 to win back the rights to residuals, which have earned her creditors some $174,000 over the past three years.

Residuals are payments made to cast members and others associated with a show when they are aired on repeat.

The U.S.-based actress lost her custody case just before Christmas last year. She is now only allowed to visit her children in France and Monaco, where her ex-husband is based.

Scroll down for video

Rutherford with her daughter Helena and son Hermes. The actress is no longer allowed to take them to the United States after she refused to return them to Monaco, where her husband is based, after their summer vacation visit

Daniel Giersch, Rutherford and son Hermes in happier times in 2007

The divorced couple, who were married for just three years, have a nine-year-old son, Hermes, and a daughter, Helena.

Their divorce was finalized in 2009 - while Rutherford was still pregnant with Helena.

A vicious and very public custody lawsuit ensued between her and Giersch, a German millionaire who made his fortune at age just 19 with a same-day postal service.

The 47-year-old star filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2013 claiming her assets totaled $23,937 but her liabilities came to $2,021,83.

The majority of her debt came from the $1.5 million in lwgal bills she racked up during the divorce and custody battle with Giersch.

She received a further blow when, shortly before Christmas 2015, a Monaco judge granted her ex-husband custody of both children.

That decision was partly prompted after Rutherford was ordered by court to return her children to her husband in Monaco after refusing to do so following their two-month summer vacation visit.

She is now not allowed to bring her children back to the United States.

Rutherford with her Gossip Girl co-stars Ed Westwick (as playboy and lothario Chuck Bass) and Blake Lively (as socialite Serena van der Woodsen)

Rutherford, who played fashionable socialite Lily van der Woodsen on Gossip Girl, owed more than $350,000 in back taxes and had monthly income of just under $1,300 a month when she filed for bankruptcy in 2013.

Gossip Girl aired its final season in late 2012.

The Melrose Place actress later had her debts discharged but the residual payments on shows including Gossip Girl were declared to be her only remaining asset.

The new deal stipulates that she cannot reclaim the money already paid to her creditors.