According to his lawyer, Robert De Niro is bankrupt due to his former wife Grace Hightower’s fashion taste. The Wizard of Lies actor’s counsel alleges he’s being worked like a dog and compelled to take any role because to his soon-to-be ex-wife’s “thirst for Stella McCartney.”

The ‘Irishman’ star is divorcing Grace Hightower, and his lawyers allege he is forced to labor at a “prodigious pace” by her.

He’s gone from starring in Hollywood blockbusters to doing TV commercials, and it’s all because of his estranged wife.

According to Page Six, he can’t afford to finance Hightower’s ostensibly luxurious lifestyle while their prenuptial agreement is being worked out in the courts.

“Mr. De Niro is 77 years old, and while he loves his craft, he should not be forced to work at this prodigious pace because he has to,” the actor’s counsel, Caroline Krauss, said in a virtual divorce court on Friday before a Manhattan judge.

“When does that stop? When does he get the opportunity to not take every project that comes along and not work six-day weeks, 12-hour days so he can keep pace with Ms. Hightower’s thirst for Stella McCartney?” she asked the court.

Krauss added that the Oscar winner “could get sick tomorrow, and the party’s over.”

It comes after De Niro stated that the coronavirus epidemic had caused him financial hardship.

Since their breakup in 2018 after 21 years together, Robert and Grace (66) have been involved in a lengthy divorce. Their on-again, off-again romance began when they married in 1997.

They split up in 1999, but reunited in 2004 and reaffirmed their vows, until the actor filed for divorce three years ago. Elliot, their son, and Helen, their daughter, are the couple’s children. One of the causes for their split has been Grace’s spending.

Kevin McDonough, Hightower’s lawyer, said that the actor has been gradually reducing the amount of money he pays her and their two children each month, from $375,000 to supposedly only $100,000. The pandemic, according to De Niro’s lawyer, has wrecked him financially; however, Hightower’s counsel claims there is proof to the contrary.

“There have been no cutbacks and no slowdowns in Mr. De Niro’s lifestyle whatsoever,” McDonough said. “When Mr. De Niro goes to brunch Sunday in Connecticut, he charters a helicopter up there. When he flies down to see his friends in Florida or wherever else, it’s a private jet.”

De Niro’s lawyer claims that her client owes millions in taxes and that the proceeds from his next two films would go to Uncle Sam rather than Hightower.

The Hollywood actor appeared in court via Skype, and his attorneys said he reduced her credit card limit after the restaurant chain Nobu and the Greenwich Hotel, both of which he has shares in, were closed or partially closed for months during the health crisis, . Caroline Krauss, his lawyer, told the judge that the restaurant chain lost US$3 million in April and US$1.87 million the following month.

Supreme Court Justice Matthew Cooper, who presided over the couple’s divorce proceedings, has slammed the high-profile pair.

“There’s nothing ordinary about these expenses. For 99.9999% of the world, these are extraordinary to an almost unimaginable degree,” Cooper said.

“I want to get these parties divorced. I want to get Ms Hightower and Mr De Niro to go their separate ways,” he added. “They’ll still come out of this richer than almost any human being who walks this earth.”