Kelly Rutherford forced to give children to grandmother, send them back dad

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Court rules Kelly Rutherford must return children to father

Actress refused to send kids back to Monaco after summer break in U.S.

“Gossip Girl” actress Kelly Rutherford handed her two young children over to their paternal grandmother during an emotional legal saga that played out in a Manhattan courtroom Tuesday.

Justice Ellen Gesmer barred the press from the proceeding — but one of the kids could be heard shouting “Mommy!” inside.

Rutherford’s ex-husband, Monaco-based businessman Daniel Giersch, had filed a writ of habeas corpus a day earlier demanding that Rutherford bring their son Hermes, 8, and daughter Helena, 6, before a judge because their mother refused to return them to him after summer break.

Lawyers for Giersch, 41, who is German, described the scene inside court Tuesday.

“They were speaking both in English and in German,” said lawyer Ira Garr of the family.

“Ms. Rutherford said, ‘You’re going to see Papa and you’re going with Oma,'” Garr said, using the German word for grandmother.

The children will board a plane to Monaco on Tuesday afternoon with their grandmother, Renita Giersch, Garr said. Their father cannot come to the US because of visa issues.

Garr said, “The kids didn’t seem to look like they missed a beat … they kissed their mother goodbye.”

But leaving court, Rutherford, 46, wearing dark sunglasses, seemed distraught.

“I have no words,” she said, refusing to comment further.

Dressed in a white button-down shirt and white pants, Rutherford roamed the courthouse hallway looking pale moments before she turned over the children.

Giersch has invited Rutherford to come to Monaco to accompany the kids to their first day of school, said his second lawyer, Robert Michaels.

The former couple has a court hearing in Monaco in September regarding who will make decisions about the children’s schooling and health care.

In 2013, a California court awarded Giersch primary custody because he had his business visa revoked and could not visit the children in the US.

Page Six reported in 2012 that neither Giersch nor his shell companies ever filed requisite US tax returns and engaged in visa fraud, according to court papers filed by one of Rutherford’s former lawyers.

The 2013 judgment allows Rutherford to spend vacations and holidays with Hermes and Helena, but Garr said that may change after the “Melrose Place” actress broke her own promise to send the kids back to Monaco on Aug. 6.

“After this episode, we will be speaking with the client and speaking with his attorney in Monaco and maybe considering taking different measures about future visits to the United States — how the visits are held or whether the visits need to be supervised,” Garr said.

“We don’t want a reoccurrence of this a year from now,” he said.

This article originally appeared on the New York Post's Page Six.