Top Art Collector David Geffen Sued By Estranged Husband for Breach of Contract

Entertainment mogul and renowned art collector David Geffen was sued on Tuesday morning by his estranged husband, model Donovan Michaels, for alleged breach of contract, Variety reported earlier this week. 

The suit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court and accuses Geffen, who initiated divorce proceedings, of treating his former partner as “a living social experiment — a trophy to show off to his wealthy friends, under the guise of benevolence.”

The 33-page complaint compares their nine-year relationship, including two years of marriage, to the rag-to-riches plot of “Trading Places,” with a “young vulnerable black man, orphaned as a toddler” invited into the world of “an exploiter, masquerading as a white knight while hiding behind wealth, philanthropy and fame.” According to Forbes, Geffen, 82, is worth $9 billion.

Michaels, who Variety notes was placed in the foster care system at 18 months, is 32. In his suit, Michaels claims Geffen promised him “lifelong” financial support but then “cut him off” and evicted him shortly after filing for divorce.

The lawsuit also claims Michaels met Geffen in 2016 through SeekingArrangements.com, a website “where men like Geffen shop for the vulnerable,” the complaint states. The complaint adds: “Geffen learned of Michaels’ troubled past — his history of neglect, poverty, instability, and legal entanglements. Rather than respond with empathy or offer genuine support, Geffen saw Michaels as an object of exploitation: a young, attractive and gay black man whose trauma could be weaponized for Geffen’s personal gratification and public image.”

Patricia Glaser, legal representation for Geffen, called the lawsuit in a statement to Variety  “pathetic.” “There was and is no contract — express, written or implied — that has ever existed,” she tells Variety. “We will be vigorously and righteously defending against this false and pathetic lawsuit.”

Geffen wields enormous influence in Hollywood and the greater art world, as a decorated patron of some of the nation’s most influential cultural institutions: He donated $100 million to Lincoln Center in 2015 and another $100 million to the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2016. In 2017 he promised $150 million to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which stands as the largest gift in the museum’s history. The multibillionaire is also a regular member of the ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list, and has a collection reportedly valued at $2 billion and rich with works by postwar masters including Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock. 

More recently, his art dealings have ensnared Geffen in a very different sort of legal dispute: A he said-he said begun by crypto billionaire Justin Sun, who in February called on Geffen to return an Alberto Giacometti sculpture that Sun says was stolen from his collection by an employee and sold as part of an elaborate fraud. Sun purchased the bronze, steel, and iron Giacometti, titled Le Nez (1949–65), at a Sotheby’s auction of works from the Macklowe collection in November 2021 for $78.4 million, working with the assistance of his former art adviser, Sydney Xiong, who is accused of exchanging Le Nez for two unidentified paintings from Geffen’s collection, reportedly worth $55 million, and an additional $10.5 million in cash.

Sun, who is based in Hong Kong, filed his suit in February in New York, where the sculpture is located. The following April, Geffen hit back with a scathing 100-page countersuit which, in many words, described Sun’s case as a “sham.”