Litigation: Husband ordered to fork out for ‘escort’ wife

The Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) has ordered a husband to continue paying maintenance of R36 000 a month to his estranged wife, despite his claim that she did not need the money as she was earning large sums of money as an escort. TimesLIVE reports that the two have been in a bitter divorce battle since 2019. The wife told the court she suffered severe psychological harm as a result of his abusive conduct. He denies the allegations. He asked the court to adjust the maintenance payments, saying there was a material change in their circumstances. The payment was suspended in October 2022 pending the wife presenting her financial records to the court.

The husband said in the initial stages of the divorce, she needed the monthly spousal allowance of R36 000, but she had since taken a job as ‘a masseuse and upmarket escort’. He claimed she earns between R88 000 and R153 000 a month. ‘While there has never been any real dispute that Mrs. VW has taken work as an escort, Mrs. VW has denied her income exceeds a few thousand rand a month,’ Judge Stuart Wilson said. The estimate of her earnings was not verified by the husband via documents directly evidencing her income but was instead based on a series of inferences drawn on a private investigator’s report and a series of Internet advertisements for her services, said the judge. In the ruling handed down this week, the judge found Mrs. VW's financial disclosures provided no indication that she earns a regular or substantial income from being an escort or from any source other than Mr. VW’s maintenance payments.