Kanye West has agreed to pay $200,000 per month in child support as part of a settlement reached in Los Angeles superior court with his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian.
But where did the figure come from?
In California, parents are usually awarded child support based on formulas or calculators set up by state governments.
These formulas take both parents’ finances into account.
In California, the average amount is about $430 per child each month.
However, in high-income cases, such as Kardashian and West’s, the court must conduct a “lifestyle analysis,” which includes reviewing documentation of the children’s expensive experiences, such as private planes and bodyguards, to determine the final child support amount.
Jacqueline Newman, a managing partner of the New York divorce law firm Berkman Bottger Newman & Schein, LLP, explained that the goal is to ensure that children affected by divorce are able to carry on with the life that they are used to.
“Conceptually speaking, in settlements, you don’t want one rich parent and one poor parent,” she said.
“A settlement should equalize things.”
Kardashian’s lawyer Laura Wasser and West’s attorney Nicholas A Salick did not respond to requests for comment.
However, court documents filed in Los Angeles revealed that the four children require the $200,000 amount to cover their private security, private school, and eventual college costs.
The children – North, nine, Saint, six, Chicago, four, and Psalm, three – all attend Sierra Canyon School, a private day school in Los Angeles where tuition ranges from $20,000 a year for pre-kindergarten students to $40,770 for high schoolers.
North has attended fashion weeks with her mother since she was an infant, frequently flying in private jets from New York to Paris and Milan.
Val Kleyman, a founding member of New York’s Kleyman Law Firm, said that the children’s daily experiences are taken into account when determining the final child support amount.
“Divorce can’t be the reason these kids don’t travel or live in a certain way than what they’re used to,” he added.
Furthermore, Ye joins a list of celebrity dads who face large child support payments after expensive splits.
In 2010, the late businessman and Las Vegas resort tycoon Kirk Kerkorian was ordered to pay $10m plus $100,000 a month, even after his ex-wife admitted that the child was not his biological daughter.
More recently, Nick Cannon, a father of 11, said that he paid “a lot more” than $3m a year in child support.
There is also the issue of West’s rapidly deteriorating wealth. Gap, Balenciaga, and Adidas all parted ways with the rapper after he went on antisemitic tirades and associated with white supremacists, causing him to reportedly lose $2bn in a day.
Legal experts who spoke to The Guardian say that West could ask for a modification in the future if he proves that his finances have changed significantly enough.
However, it’s unlikely to affect the day-to-day existence of the Kardashian-West kids.
