Robert De Niro ‘will be lucky if he makes $7.5 million this year’, lawyers say

Robert De Niro has apparently claimed that coronavirus has decimated his finances.

As reported by Page Six, The Irishman actor appeared in court via Skype this week after his estranged wife Grace Hightower asked for an emergency order to raise her monthly credit card limit from $50,000 (£39,700) to $100,000 (£79,400). De Niro had previously halved that amount, according to reports.

However, De Niro’s lawyers claimed that the actor’s financial status had been significantly damaged by Covid-19 after restaurants Nobu and Greenwich Hotel, which he owns stakes in, were forced to close.

The judge was told that, as well as sushi restaurant Nobu losing $4.87m (£3.86m) between April and May, De Niro had been forced to borrow from business partners to pay investors £390,000 ($500,000) because “he doesn’t have the cash”.

The actor’s lawyers said: “He is going to be lucky if he makes $7.5m this year,” adding that he would likely make $2.5m (£1.98m) in 2021 and 2021.

Addressing Hightower, they said: “These people, in spite of his robust earnings, have always spent more than he has earned so this 76-year-old robust man couldn’t retire even if he wanted to because he can’t afford to keep up with his lifestyle expense”.

Hightower's lawyer apparently retorted: “I’m not a believer that a man who has an admitted worth of $500m and makes $30m a year, all of a sudden in March he needs to cut down by 50 per cent and ban her from the house.”

The Supreme Court justice ruled that De Niro should keep the lower credit card limit while paying Hightower $75,000 to find a summer home for their children.

De Niro filed from divorce from Hightower in 2018.