'I am seriously about to be homeless': Supermodel says Peter Nygard hasn't paid child support since January | CBC News (2024)

Caroline Barghout · CBC News

· Posted: Jul 05, 2021 6:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: July 5, 2021

American supermodel Beverly Peele says Peter Nygard hasn't paid child support in more than six months and she fears if he doesn't pay soon, she and her children will be homeless.

"Our lights and gas has been turned off for late payment and our phone as well," Peelewrotein a June 16email to CBC News.

"I am seriously about to be homeless, and his son Trey needs this money bad. I have never been in this situation before."

Nygardis the father of Peele's17-year-old son, Trey Peele-Nygard. She says at first she didn't want Nygard to know he was the father, but one of her friendsended up telling him.

Peele says Treywas five years old when she told him who his father was. When he was 12, she told him that Nygard sexually assaulted her.

"I thought I dealt with all my feelings about it. I thought I worked past it and was over it and all that stuff, but it's definitely been resurfaced—resurfacing someemotions that I didn't know that I still had,"Peelesaid in a Mayinterview with CBC News.

Earlier this year, the model appeared on aDiscovery+documentarycalled Unseamly: The Investigation of Peter Nygardand talked about the alleged sexual assault.She believes that is why the child support payments stopped.

"It is like Peter is punishing us for speaking our truth and it is not fair," Peelesaid.

In the 1990s, Peele graced the pages of hundreds of fashion magazines, from Elle and Mademoiselle to British Vogue. She also walked the runway for top designers all over the world.

Later in her career, Peele signed a three-year contract to model Nygard clothing. She saysduring her time with the company, Nygard raped her.

The former designer and fashion executive is currently inHeadingley Correctional Centre awaiting possible extradition to the U.S., where he is charged with a number of crimes, including sex trafficking. Through his lawyers, he has denied all the allegations against him.

A class-action lawsuit against Nygard was put on hold last summer until the FBI's criminal case makes its way through the courts. A total of 81 women are involved in the civil case, alleging the 79-year-old sexually assaulted them. Some of the allegations dateback to the 1970s.

Peele says Trey has been struggling since he learned of his father's arrest. Earlier this year, she says she had to pull him out of class after news about Nygard began to spread.

"His idol,his father figure, his role model is considered a monster, and he realized it," she said. "I know he was crying at times, in his room alone."

She says Trey recently got a job and has been trying to help his mother pay bills and keep a roof over their heads.

"I'm really proud of my son. I'm really, really proud of him."

Peele says she contacted the receiver in control of nine Nygard companies— which havebeen undercourt-appointed receivership since March2020 due to debts owed toapproximately 350 creditorsaround the world, according to areceiver's court report— to find out how to get Nygard to pay child support.

They were no help, Peele says.

Car repossessed

Peele says Nygard had been makingher car payments, but that stopped last year. In December, she says her vehicle was repossessed. Peele says she hasn't received any child support since Jan.1.

"He knows my financial situation and he always toyed around with that," said Peele. "He always was, like, 'You're not going to be my girlfriend and I'm going to make your life a living hell.'He dangles the money."

She says Nygard knows Trey's child support is the only income Peele regularly receives.

"He's a bully with money and he plays tit-for-tat," said Peele. "You don't have that much longer to pay child support. Just pay it. And we know you have the money. You just liquidated $70 million," she said.

Peele says when Nygard first learned he was Trey's father, he gave her $400 a week, which Peele says wasn't enough to cover the bills. She says Nygard offered to pay her $28,000 a month, but ended up settling on a different amount out of court.

"I wasn't doing it for money. I was just doing it for the principle of the fact that you need to take care of your child," she said.

Manitoba court ordered support payments in 1989

Peele isn't the only mother who has had to fight Nygardfor child support.

In 1989, a Manitoba judge ordered Nygard to pay child support to Helena Jaworski, the mother of Nygard's son Peter. Jaworski had been fighting for her son for four years.

Nygard was ordered to pay $730 a month plus any medical or dental bills for his son. In 1992, a judge increased thatto $1,000 a month.

"It is really quite pathetic to read what this mother has had to do and give up in order to give [her son] Peter a reasonable standard of living,"Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench Justice J. Carr wrote in the 1992 decision.

"She has sold almost everything she has in an effort to assist the child. She asks, quite rightly, why Peter should not benefit from his father's economic situation, as he would if the family was intact."

In 2004, Nygard agreed to an out-of-court settlement with Kaarina Pakka, a former flight attendant, who is the mother of Nygard's son Mika. Pakka was reportedlyasking for $5.5 million in retroactive child support and $68,000 a month.

According to media reports, Pakka first took Nygard to court in 1988. After a four-year battle he agreed to pay $1,500 a month, which was increased to $3,000 in 1998.

In 2002, Pakka returned to court and was granted interim child support payments of $15,000 a month. She and Nygard settled their case in 2004.

Peele says she hasn't spoken to Nygard since before his arrest, but has reached out to his lawyer Jay Prober to find out if Nygard will pay her son's child support. She didn't receive a response.

"I've been arrested a couple of times for my stupidity, things that I did over 16, 17, 20 years ago and had to get an advance on the money from Peter so I could get bailed out," she said.

"And he always uses that against me. And sometimes I'm like, 'how does it feel to be in jail now?… Now you know what it feels like.'"

Nygard's representatives didn't respond to requests for comment.

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