Rumor: Sandra Bullock and Jesse James fight for custody of Jesse's daughter, Sunny

Sandra Bullock and husband Jesse James are reportedly in the process of fighting for custody over Jesse’s 3 year-old daughter, Sunny. Currently, Sunny’s mother and Jesse’s ex, porn star Janine Lindemulder has custody. Apparently, Sunny has shown up at Jesse and Sandra’s house with suspicious marks and bruises. Jesse’s remarks in court papers state,

Sunny had small scratches and what appeared to be broken blood vessels and a bruise on her left cheek and a few bruises around her left and right eye. When my wife gently asked her if it hurt she said: ‘Yes, but the bleeding stopped.’ She just said ‘mommy’s chair’ when we asked how it happened. [Janine] was to pick her up on Saturday afternoon but when she arrived (an hour late), Sunny screamed and cried she didn’t want to go.

My wife and I let Sunny stay with us in bed Saturday night. We didn’t think she should be alone. During the night she was very restless and seemed to be angry and crying off and on, but clearly cried out: ‘don’t touch me’ and ‘don’t do that.‘

In addition, Jesse says he’swilling to drop his court actionagainst Janine if she gives him50 percent custody of theirdaughter. However, Janine says Jesse has only been involved in Sunny’s life since January – before that, she claims he had only seen her for 30 minutes on the day she was born. A friend of Janine’s says,

Janine doesn’t have anyproblems with Sandra, but shedoes think it was Sandra whoconvinced Jesse to take a moreactive role in his daughter’slife. Janineis a loving, caring mother.She welcomes any sort ofinvestigation into her household.She has nothing to hide. Just because she’s a pornstar people automatically assumeshe’s not a good mother- and that’s simply not true!

Jesse has two other children with his first wife Karla James, Jesse James, Jr., 7, and Chandler, 9. Sandra has spoken about being close to her step children and loving them like they were her own.

Source: The National Enquirer

Thanks to CBB reader Bella.

Comments

Oh no, and I genuinly thought they were all getting along well. Now it looks like there’s going to be a huge nasty custody battle. The poor child(ren)!
I can understand that Jesse is concerned when his daughter ‘shows up covered in bruises’ but come on, kids of that age have ALWAYS got some bruises and small cuts – from PLAYING. Instead of trying to take the little girl away from her mommy, Sandra should focus on getting along with her (the mom), for the sake of the child. Just my opinion, of course!

- pink.lioness on April 5th, 2007

I can understand that Jesse is concerned when his daughter ‘shows up covered in bruises’ but come on, kids of that age have ALWAYS got some bruises and small cuts – from PLAYING.
———————————————
Really? Not in my experience an occasional bruise or broken bone yes. But I’ve never known any toddler who constantly had bruises or other visible signs of trauma.

Anyhoo, my feeling is in cases of alleged/suspected child abuse is better safe than sorry. Better to be a little over-zealous and investigate the situation than let it slide and perhaps enable a tragedy. And as the mother herself points out in her statement if there’s no abuse she has nothing to hide. A thorough investigation should absolve her not implicate her further.

- LAILA on April 5th, 2007

Sunny is 3 and Jesse and Sandy were married for 2 years, meaning Jesse left his pregnant wife for Sandy? Hmm… very interesting. He had little contact with his daughter and now he claims she’s being abused to gain custody. I read that he offered to drop the abuse claim if she agrees to a 50/50 custody split. I don’t know if any of this is true but his abuse claim sounds premature at this point.

- millie on April 5th, 2007

Laila, I agree on the statement better safe than sorry, but we surely don’t know what really went on there, do we? Who says the girl has ‘constantly bruises and shows signs of trauma’? We only know what Jesse (who until recently didn’t show much interest in his child) and Sandra CLAIM that happened.
I like Sandra and hope she isn’t just trying to obtain custody of the little girl, maybe because she wants a child, and what would be more perfect than her hubby’s biological sweet little daughter? I know that’s a HORRIBLE thought, but who knows. I’m not implying anything but it’s just as wrong to trash the kid’s mother just on the word of her ex. The child’s welfare must come first. Do they spare a thought what it does to a small child – when the most important people in her life are at war?

- pink.lioness on April 5th, 2007

OMG! This is from the National Enquirer and people are taking this as gospel? I take everything from that rag with a giant boulder of salt.

True, however the court statement from Jesse is drawn directly from the official documents, and a motion was filed March 15th.

- leni on April 5th, 2007

I don’t like the way Jesse James is handling the situation with the mother of Sunny. Children should not be bargained for when is comes to custody. I have seen his TV show and I don’t like this guy. He didn’t seem to be a very involved parent to his first 2 kids with the first wife. He made fun his wife (at the time)in front of the cameras for possibly having strippers in his garage during working hours. Then having a child with a porn star and not pursuing any visitation of the baby for how long after the birth. Now the situation with possible abuse of Sunny and a legal fight with the mother sounds like Sandra Bullock is the one who is actually taking on the parental visitation of Sunny and doing the fighting for the child in place of her the father Jesse.

- Debbie on April 5th, 2007

“Really? Not in my experience an occasional bruise or broken bone yes. But I’ve never known any toddler who constantly had bruises or other visible signs of trauma.”

Really? You should meet my 2 1/2 year old daughter!

- Stacey on April 5th, 2007

YIkes! If what Jesse says is true, one would be irresponsible to not pursue the matter and have it investigated thoroughly. It sounds pretty bad to me. Child abuse is not all that uncommon. I pray for the little girl.

- Holly Catherine Slavic on April 5th, 2007

I’m a little confused…if you were seriously worried that your child was being abused, why would you drop the claim if she agreed to 50/50 custody? Basically he is saying that it is okay for her to be “abused” 50% of the time? I just can’t believe he seriously is concerned for her well being if he would consider anything less than full custody. I don’t think he or Sandra have bad intentions, but it is just strange to me…

- Amy on April 5th, 2007

I agree with Amy. Something doesnt seem right. If a father really is concerned about abuse…why would he agree to 50/50 custody?

- lucie on April 5th, 2007

I don’t know exactly what happened, but I did know this. My SS used to come over to our house all the time with unusual bruises near his eyes. Eh had black eyes at least twice. We took pictures and confronted him. His response was that a lamp fell on his face, and the second time he didn’t know what happened. Nice. Well we came to find out he was being neglected at his mother’s house. His older sister was literally throwing him down stairs like it was a game. He was left unsupervised with his sisters (Whom were only a few years older then him) while his mom went to the store for long periods of time. This was when he was ages 3-5. He is now 8. We now have had custody of him for over 2 years, not because of this, but because his mom was arrested for fighting a teenage girl, and for a having possession of drugs. We didn’t know anything about it. So before people speak and say this looks like a custody battle, don’t just assume. There are innocent children everyday that have to endure this child neglect. She may not be abusing the child, but someone is not properly watching her.

Also, my niece used to wake up in the middle of the night, and yell, “No mommy.. Don’t hit!” So what do you think that means? Now that she is older she can tell us more. Her mom used to hit her for everything. She was maybe 3-4 at the time. Her parents were no longer together so we saw her rather infrequently. So, I really do think this is a valid complain to make. Parents normally don’t try to go this route unless there is just cause. They will also make the children talk to a counselor to see if this really did occur. Just be lucky that your children’s bruises are from playing, because not all kids are.

- Yonni on April 5th, 2007

They need to go for full custody if there is abuse, no doubt.

- Holly Catherine Slavic on April 5th, 2007

My opinion is that a 3 year old child will not lie about how they are injured. If she said it happened on her mom’s chair, it probably did. An older child would be more likely to make up a story. Also, I completely disagree that a child should sleep in the bed of two people who are practically complete strangers. She has only known them for 3 months. I also think it’s kind of funny how he makes a point of saying Sunny’s mom came an hour late to pick her up- you’re 3 years late, buddy! Some people.

- melanie on April 5th, 2007

Some of the child’s behaviours are
flags for abuse-including screaming when
her mother showed up and refusing to go back
with her. It certainly warrants further
investigation.

- KarenC on April 5th, 2007

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Jesse says he’s willing to drop his court action against Janine if she gives him 50 percent custody of their daughter.
———————————————

That speaks volumns…

- Heavenly_hibiscus on April 5th, 2007

IMO, this is the point of dropping it if he gets 50/50 custody… if he has half custody, he can better observe/moniter the situation and see for himself if it is abuse… give her a chance to prove that there is nothing wrong AND give him more time with his daughter.

Then, if he feels it’s necessary, he can re-file for full custody or they can discuss a different arrangement giving the mother more time again.

I don’t see anything wrong with this.

My bil has a child with an ex girlfriend… he has full custody… she sees him every other weekend (if she bothers to show up) and a couple weeks in the summer.

He had marks and other things going on and my bil documented and took the matter to the courts… the courts gave him his little boy…

it takes a lot of evidence for them to take a child away from their mother… and originally he had joint custody, too.

He was trying to help his ex get more stable so he wouldn’t have to take the boy away from her. He knows firsthand from having wonderful parents how important a mother is and how important it also is for a boy to have his father… He wanted his son to have both… in the end, it was better for him to be primarily with his father and his mother seems not to really care about him much anymore… she wants money, though… she wanted him to pay child support when he had the child more than she did…

I’m telling you, don’t judge it till you’ve been there.

My daughter gets lots of bruises, but she’s never been afraid of me… she’s had times where she didn’t want to leave somewhere fun or where she thought it would be fun to make me chase her, but there is a big difference.

And those nightmares are nothing to take lightly.

I will pray for this little girl and her family.

- Kat on April 7th, 2007

As for the remarks from Jesse James towards Sunny about cuts and bruises… it happens to all children. You should know that she lives in Oregon, where there are many rocks and they do live close to the coast. I think it is unfortunate that Jesse is now wanting to be an active part of his daughter’s life… considering he left Janine when she was pregnant to a more “famous” Sandra Bullock. Let’s not forget that he chose not to be a part of her life and shouldn’t all of a sudden want to enter her life as he pleases. As a friend of Janine’s I can assure anyone that there is no other place that Sunny wishes to be than with her mother. I personally believe that Sandra is pushing for Jesse to fight for her so she could be seen as the “good” stepmom when in fact that if she wanted to be the “good” step mom, she should have left that family alone instead of becoming a homewrecker and now wanting to fight over the only thing that Janine has… her children. Those children are her life force and I can’t even see Janine being anything else than being ther mother. And yes she may be in the adult industry but that doesn’t mean she brings her work home or has a dark side to her. I don’t see how Jesse can make such claims of her after he infact married her as she is, became a father to her child, knowing what kind of profession she was in and now that he is no longer with her, he wants to make accusations. And you may have read in the latest issue of People Magazine that Jesse almost got ran over by a stalker in his driveway. Is this going to be the same driveway that he plans to let Sunny ride her bike in? And I think that if Sandra wants to become a mom, she should have her own child… and then see how it will affect her when Jesse is tired of her too… and decides to fight over custody of her child with his new wife…. because if it happens once, it can happen twice.

- Seon Hee Kim on April 27th, 2007

All I can say is that Jesse James must have a huge cock. For Sandra to marry such a DOLT as James and then take on his “Baggage” as well, it just doesn’t make sense other than he must satisfy the hell out of her in bed. EIther that or she’s as dumb as a box of rocks too.

- Renny on May 19th, 2008