Swizz Beatz's Divorce

Singer Alicia Keys’ new boyfriend, musician Swizz Beatz, is engaged in a divorce battle with his estranged wife, Mashonda Dean. The case presents at least two principles of family law that merit discussion.

1. Child support is typically not retroactive to a date preceding an order. Mashonda has recently filed a petition for interim support. We often hear media reports about “back child support.” However, that term typically refers to child support orders that have already been entered by a judge, and the paying party is behind on those payments. A court orders child support after a petition has been filed, and, for good reason, does not dial back the start date of the payments to a date before the order was entered. If a person had become accustomed to paying a certain amount of child support and suddenly found out that he or she was responsible not only for an additional amount going forward, but also for that same additional amount for months or even years in the past, that order could work a significant hardship on the paying parent.

2. All divorce proceedings require complete honesty. Mashonda alleged that she had not accepted Swizz’s financial offers yet because she was unsure about whether he was being completely forthcoming about his financial circumstances. If Mashonda and Swizz enter into an agreement of any kind, and it is later determined that one or both of them have acted dishonestly, or even that new information has come to light that was not known to either of them at the time the agreement was finalized, the agreement can (and usually will) be reopened for further proceedings.