Jaime King on losing custody of her kids: ‘This is scary’
Jaime King has opened up about losing custody of her kids.
Last month, the actress lost physical custody of her two sons James, 11, and Leo, nine, to her ex-husband Kyle Newman after she allegedly failed to complete a six-month drug and alcohol rehabilitation program and a 26-week parenting course.
King has now spoken out about the ongoing custody battle on the latest episode of the Whine Down with Jana Kramer podcast.
“My duty as a mother is to protect my children,” the White Chicks actress said. “And that’s all that matters to me. This is scary.”
King then pointed out that she did not know how the legal system worked when she married the director in 2007.
“I just didn’t know when I got married at a young age,” she admitted. “I just didn’t know that that the world works like this. I didn’t know that legal systems work like this.”
“And not to sound like some kind of neophyte, but I thought that, you know, when you choose to love someone, then you love that person,” the 45-year-old continued. “You build a family with them, and, you trust them.”
King, who is allowed to see her children three times a week in one-hour blocks, went on to explain that she has kept quiet about losing custody in order to protect her sons’ privacy.
Elsewhere in the podcast episode, King insisted that she stopped using drugs years ago.
“I’ve never had to think about myself as sober or not sober. I stopped using drugs at 17 or something,” she told Kramer, claiming that her ex-husband used her past troubles to win custody of their kids.
The actress also shared that she hopes to reform the “terrifying” child custody system.
“It’s terrifying, when to be able to be free means that you have to pay a very extreme price, and I’m not just talking about financially,” she said. “It’s very upsetting, and I will do everything in my power to change this system, and it’s not a will. I’m going to. There’s no price to pay for freedom.”
King filed for divorce from Newman in 2020 and it was finalised in 2023.
