Custody Battles

Robin Thicke is not allowed to go near his child or his ex-wife, Paula Patton ... this after a judge just temporarily yanked custody away from him, but now Robin's lawyer claims Paula is being investigated by the L.A. County Dept. of Children and Family Services for emotional abuse ... TMZ has learned.

Robin and Paula both rushed to an L.A. courtroom Thursday, each asking for complete temporary sole custody of 6-year-old Julian. The judge shut Robin down and issued a domestic violence restraining order Paula sought in which Robin must now stay clear of Julian, her and her mom until further notice.

Robin submitted a declaration from his lawyer, informing the judge they have been told by the DCFS lawyer that the agency will close the investigation into Robin because the allegations were "unfounded," and there is an open investigation into Paula for "emotional abuse."

TMZ broke the story ... DCFS opened an investigation after Julian told school officials earlier this year that his dad had been spanking him hard. According to Paula's legal docs, a school official claimed Julian had complained Robin was punching him ... something Robin has denied.

We've learned the "emotional abuse" allegation involves claims that Paula has intentionally tried to alienate Julian from Robin.

As for Paula's decision to go for a domestic violence restraining order, we're told the trigger was Robin going to Paula's house to pick up Julian for a scheduled visit, and when she wouldn't open the door he allegedly started banging on it ... something Robin denies.

Robin admits to light spanking, but only rarely.

However, it's worth noting a judge in L.A. already ruled the case stay in Jersey but we're told they're gonna try the Christmas card tactic in NJ too.

Sherri Shepherd almost screwed herself over in her child support war, all because she celebrated a birthday ... the BD of Jesus Christ himself.

THE BACKSTORY: Sherri's ex-hubby, Lamar Sally, has been trying for months to move their child support case from NJ to CA where he'd get a way bigger check.

THE SNAFU: Sherri insists the case should be heard in New Jersey because that's where she lives, but sent an Xmas card to friends and fam last month saying she's already moved to L.A. Lamar's lawyer, Mark Vincent Kaplan, has jumped all over this like white on rice.

THE COMEBACK: Sherri is trying to minimize the screwup by putting Lamar's online dating profile on blast ... a profile in which he brags he makes a lot of money -- between $75k and $100k a year.

Remember, this is the kid Sherri tried to disavow, claiming she was defrauded into making a surrogacy contract ... a claim the judge rejected.

Future and Ciara are no longer at war over custody of their 2-year-old baby Future ... we've learned the case is officially settled.

Sources close to the exes tell TMZ ... they've agreed to joint custody, however, baby Future will be with Ciara most of the time.

Future is frequently on the road, but when he's back in the ATL he'll have reasonable access to his son.

Our sources say both Future and Ciara want to close this chapter and move on with their lives.

The custody case has been dismissed.

Robin Thicke brought the cops to Paula Patton's home Friday morning because she allegedly violated their custody order by not allowing him to take their son ... but the video dramatically shows Robin walked away empty-handed.

TMZ broke the story ... Robin won a victory in court Thursday when a judge refused to limit his custody to daytime monitored visits ... this after the L.A. County Dept. of Children and Family Services launched an investigation into allegations Robin was using excessive corporal punishment on 6-year-old Julian.

We're told Robin called Paula after the hearing to take Julian for the night -- which the custody order allows him to do -- but she went radio silent.

On Friday morning Robin went to Paula's Malibu home with L.A. County Sheriff's deputies and the court order. We're told the deputies went inside the house and spoke with Julian and he said he was scared of his dad and didn't want to go with him.

You see Paula in the video -- obtained by TMZ. Robin is out of frame. The deputies explain they will not take the child against his will.

One source connected with Robin says the couple is now close to reaching some middle ground on how to deal with the custody issues.

Uma Thurman's relationship with her ex-fiance is so toxic they shouldn't be in the same room together with their daughter ... according to a court-ordered psychologist.

Uma and Arpad Busson were in court Friday for their custody war over 4-year-old Luna, and Dr. Sara Weiss testified about the exes, saying Luna genuinely enjoys her time with Arpad ... but definitely shouldn't go longer than 7 days away from Uma.

She said Luna shows signs of separation anxiety -- and Uma even had to come pick her up once, due to a particularly bad meltdown while she was with Arpad.

But the doc added family bonding shouldn't be part of the girl's routine. As she put it, "I don't think these two people should be in the same room with Luna."

Robin Thicke and ex-wife Paula Patton have been embroiled in a nasty custody fight over their 6-year-old son. It's escalated to a Child Services case over alleged physical abuse, and Robin just scored a legal victory.

Sources familiar with the case tell TMZ ... Julian told school officials at the beginning of the year his dad had spanked him ... more than once. The school reported the incident to the L.A. County Dept. of Children and Family Services on January 3rd, and the Dept. opened an investigation.

Paula then began denying Robin access to their son, and filed an emergency order asking the family law judge to restrict Robin's contact with Julian to monitored daytime visits only.

According to legal docs Paula told Robin, "Julian is scared of you."

Paula says in her declaration, the day before Julian told the school, he told her that Robin spanked him "really hard." He demonstrated and hit Paula on the back so hard she said, "ow." Julian then said it was actually worse than that.

A school official also submitted a declaration saying Julian told her Robin frequently "punches" him very hard.

Robin says in legal docs, "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 a declaration from a nanny who claims she has seen Robin smoke marijuana on several occasions in front of Julian. And there's this: Paula says at Julian's kindergarten graduation last June, Robin showed up drunk at 8:30 AM and was "hooting and hollering and making inappropriate jokes" in the Catholic church.

Robin claims this is all about his decision to block Paula from attending his dad Alan's funeral last month. He says in docs, "Paula did not have a positive relationship with my father and often made negative comments to me about my father. As such, she was not welcome at his funeral."

Sources connected to the case tell us there was a hearing Thursday morning and the judge denied Paula's request to limit Robin's joint custody and also a request for drug testing.

As for DCFS, we're told social workers have interviewed Julian twice and also interviewed Paula. Robin is being interviewed Thursday afternoon.

The DCFS case is ongoing.

Preggo Jenelle Evans and her current baby daddy, David Eason, headed to a custody hearing Wednesday in North Carolina over her 2-year-old son with ex-fiance, Nathan Griffith.

Not at all awkward.

The "Teen Mom 2" star is expecting a girl at the end of the month with Eason. Hopefully her drink was decaf.

Brad Pitt has fired back at Angelina Jolie ... essentially claiming she's a bad parent for putting their family drama on blast for public consumption.

Brad just filed legal docs asking for an order to seal their file. Angelina had previously filed unsealed documents alleging Brad had parenting issues that made it too risky for him to have unmonitored visits with their 6 kids. She also alleged Brad had a lot to hide about his conduct.

In Brad's new legal docs, he says Angelina knows better ... they are famous people and the kids are damaged when she airs their dirty laundry in public. He suggests Angelina going public has humiliated and embarrassed their kids and could even endanger them.

And there's this ... in the docs Brad's lawyer says, "[Angelina] apparently has no self-regulating mechanism to preclude sensitive information from being placed in the public record, or she has other motives."

Brad asked for an emergency order sealing the case but was shut down, so now he's filed a formal motion to seal the case ... something the judge indicated he would grant.

Morena Baccarin says her ex-husband's fear of their kid catching Zika in Brazil is a bogus claim made simply to spite her ... and she just won a court battle over the trip.

In a hearing Thursday, the court found Morena's ex, Austin Chick, waited too long to object to their 3-year-old son flying south of the border to visit his dying great grandmother.

His lawyers were demanding the "Gotham" star get their custody agreement authorized in Brazil to make sure he'd get custody if something happened to Morena during the trip. Morena's team, led by lawyer Samantha Spector, says they tried to resolve that issue, but Austin's camp went radio silent for weeks.

The judge ruled there was no reason to block Morena's trip. She told the court she'd hire top-notch security in Brazil and hunker down in her hotel for extra safety.

Lena Headey got a HUGE pay raise on "Game of Thrones" and is now making more than $1 million PER EPISODE ... so claims her ex-husband, who's got plans for that extra dough.

Peter Loughran just filed new docs asking the court to make Lena pay his legal fees in their nasty custody battle -- to the tune of $40k. He says it's only fair, since he's jobless and Lena's sleeping on a bed of 'GoT' cash.

It's interesting ... there were reports Lena was set to make upwards of $500k per episode for season 7, but Peter obviously thinks she's making more than double that already.

DeAndre Jordan was a very happy man on Friday after being awarded joint custody of his 1-year-old son ... the latest in a custody war with his baby mama.

Angelina Jolie went underground while her custody battle with Brad Pitt was raging on -- and she finally surfaced once the storm passed ... for now.

Angelina was seen leaving a Los Angeles area hotel on Thursday with her kids. Our sources say she'd checked in there before the emergency hearing Wednesday morning, when Brad was trying to get their custody case sealed.

As we reported, the judge denied Brad. The exes are still operating under their temporary custody deal -- she has primary physical custody of all 6 kids, while he gets weekly visitation.

Angelina Jolie is imploring Brad Pitt to help find a new professional to help them and their children deal with the "trauma" of what happened on their private jet 3 months ago.

Angelina's attorney fired off an email to Brad's legal team on December 1, proposing they "participate in joint sessions with a trauma specialist so that they may learn how to best support and interact with their children."

The request makes it clear -- Jolie thinks the kids are so bad off because of what they witnessed on the plane, and the therapy process they've been going through isn't getting the job done. As we've reported, both sides agreed in September to attend family therapy sessions as part of their temporary custody agreement.

Another sign the situation is still dire -- in docs, Brad's attorney suggested their 2 eldest boys, Maddox and Pax, might not want to visit with their dad.

One source tells us the boys walked out of one session in the past, and have refused to attend others.

It's important to note ... DCFS closed out its investigation after concluding Brad did nothing that warranted official action. DCFS could have referred the case to dependency court if it felt the kids were in danger, or recommended criminal prosecution ... it did neither.

It's unclear if he's responded to Angelina's request.

Brad Pitt thinks he's getting the short end of the stick when it comes to his visitation time with his kids, and has a plan to change that -- but unfortunately for him, their child therapists don't agree.

Brad and Angelina Jolie's lawyers filed a series of emails for Wednesday morning's hearing. In one of them his attorney, Lance Spiegel, says despite Brad complying with every aspect of the child therapy process ... "the therapy team has ignored or disregarded issues that [Brad] has raised." He's not specific about the issues.

It's clear from the docs Brad is frustrated by the limited amount of time he gets with his 6 kids ... 1 visit per week. The issue is, Brad signed a temporary custody deal months ago in which he agreed -- along with Angelina -- they would both let the therapists call the shots.

The emails from Brad's attorney suggest he's trying to circumvent that deal. In fact, Spiegel says "Regardless of [the therapists'] views, there is no reason for Brad not to request court orders" for more access to the kids.

In late November, Brad's lawyer asked if Angelina would agree to the following schedule in December:

- one session with the twins (Knox and Vivienne)
- one session with the middle kids (Zahara and Shiloh)
- one session with the twins AND the middle kids
- one session with the older kids (Maddox and Pax)

The sessions would be monitored and 30-60 minutes long. Spiegel adds, if Maddox and Pax don't want to see him ... Brad wants an extra session with the other 4 kids.

Angelina's team turned down the offer. Her attorney, Laura Wasser, fired off a very firm response saying Brad's team is ignoring what therapists feel is best for the kids. She implores them to give the therapists a chance to "tell us how the kids are feeling."

As we reported, Brad was shut down in his effort to keep the case sealed ... but it's now clear from these emails he's determined to spend more time with his brood, ASAP.

Brad Pitt's effort to seal his and Angelina Jolie's custody battle from the public was rejected by the judge Wednesday morning.

We broke the story ... Brad requested an emergency hearing to address locking down all the proceedings related to their war over their 6 kids. Lawyers for both sides marched into court, but the judge quickly denied Brad's request.

His side has been fuming since Jolie filed their temporary custody arrangement in court last week -- a move Brad believes only served to air their dirty laundry in public and damage the children.

We're told Angelina felt it necessary to file the docs in order to have the court enforce the terms -- specifically the part about letting a therapist make the call on when Brad can start having unmonitored visits.

In docs, Angelina's lawyer says Brad's effort to seal the whole case isn't so much about protecting the children -- as his side has claimed -- but more about keeping his own actions hidden ... because it was "[Brad's] conduct at the center of the DCFS and FBI investigations."

Sources connected to the case tell us Brad has been trying to "push past the process." As one source put it, he was acting like a "celebrity who is used to getting whatever he wants" ... and after the DCFS investigation cleared him of criminal wrongdoing, what he wanted was to have solo time with the children.

Our Brad sources deny he's made any effort to change the temporary custody deal.

We're told Angelina also wants the whole case to remain private -- as long as Brad sticks to the custody arrangement they both signed off on months ago.

Brad Pitt is going to court to keep his custody war with Angelina Jolie private, and sources connected with Brad say his motivation is to thwart her from further damaging their children by airing their dirty laundry in public.

Sources connected to the case tell TMZ ... Brad filed docs Tuesday in family court, requesting an emergency hearing. We're told he intends to ask the judge to seal all documents and proceedings related to his and Angelina's ongoing battle for custody of their 6 kids.

Several sources say Angelina filed the documents because she feared Brad was angling to change their temporary agreement so that he could have unmonitored visits with the children. We're told Angelina is relying on the family therapist, who says it's too early for Brad to have unmonitored visits -- but she does want him to have solo visits ... once the therapist signs off.

Sources connected with Brad, however, are calling BS ... saying the only document filed in the case is the one Angelina blasted out to the world ... exposing their 6 children to needless pain. Our Brad sources say there was no reason for Angelina to file a private agreement, and make it public other than to trash Brad and make the children collateral damage.

We're told he has made NO move to change the private agreement that was always meant to remain private -- and he feels by gratuitously making it public the way Jolie did ... it's evidence she's a bad parent.

Brad will get his shot within a few hours to argue the case should remain private. We're told the emergency hearing is slated for Wednesday morning.