In the wake of disagreements over co-parenting schedules, actor Jesse Williams’ ex-wife is seeking primary custody of their two children.
According to rumors, Aryn Drake-Lee has accused the former Grey’s Anatomy actor of acting erratically, which is affecting their children’s health. According to Radar Online, she is now asking a judge to give her primary custody of Maceo and Sadie.
After five years of marriage and 13 years together, Drake-Lee filed for divorce from the actor in 2017. They agreed to share legal and physical custody of their children, but she alleges her ex-husband has broken the co-parenting schedule and fired a babysitter that the kids enjoyed.
Drake-Lee wants the court to change the arrangement so that Williams has visitation with his children on the first, third, and fifth weekends of each month instead of shared custody, according to legal documents acquired by Radar Online.
Williams’ work schedule, she claims, has led to “increasing irregularity, longer absences, regular last-minute cancellations, and other concerns” that are “very disruptive to our children’s life.”
“I am requesting modification of the custody schedule and other provisions of the judgment to better reflect the new reality of our lives, and most importantly, properly and positively address the needs of our children,” she writes.
“I have tried to communicate with Jesse to resolve these issues to no avail. In May 2020, I sent a detailed communication with my concerns about their health and exhaustion, which Jesse read and ignored. Since then, I have sent multiple messages about the recurring issues, but he has continued this trend of not participating in meaningful conversations or strategies about their health,” she says.
According to RadarOnline, Drake-Lee claims the former couple’s children struggled without the nanny, whom she rehired out of her own cash.
According to TheGrio, Williams was forced to pay $40,000 per month in alimony and over $100,000 in spousal support as part of their divorce settlement. According to theGrio, Drake-Lee requested more than $600,000 in past child support and more than $250,000 in retroactive spousal support in February 2019. She also claimed that her ex-husband was unreliable when it came to child custody arrangements.
In a May 2019 interview with PEOPLE, she discussed how their children were affected by their divorce and custody struggle.
“When you start spinning, the children start spinning, so even if you’re looking at them and you’re telling them everything is fine, they know it’s not fine because they can feel it’s not fine,” Drake-Lee said to the outlet.
She continued, “It’s also okay for the children to see me crying, to see that I’m having a hard day today. Because that lets them know that when they have those hard days, there’s also room for that.”
“There have been several instances of Jesse alerting me with very little notice that he will be gone for weeks or months at a time for work, and consequently must cancel his custodial time,” she writes in the most recent court petition, referring to Williams’ departure from Grey’s Anatomy in May 2021.
Williams, she claims, has canceled time with his children over 15 times, frequently canceling and then rescheduling.
“When I’ve reminded Jesse of his cancelations and informed him of plans made because of said cancelations, he has resorted to erratic behavior to try to force me to acquiesce to his demands; he calls me names, uses threatening language and intimidation tactics such as threatening to send the police to my home, causing me to fear for my and our children’s safety,” she claims.
