Liza Minnelli hit her estranged hubby with divorce papers yesterday – and said it was “hurtful” that he tagged her as a spouse-beating drunk in a lawsuit.
The Oscar-winning song-and-dance star vowed to turn her lawyers loose on soon-to-be-ex David Gest, a day after he popped her with a $10 million complaint portraying himself as her cowering punching bag.
“I hoped very much that the end of my marriage would be handled with mutual respect and dignity,” Minnelli, 57, said in a statement released yesterday. “The allegations in this lawsuit are hurtful and without merit.”
Shortly after sounding off, Minnelli filed for divorce in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“I know that the papers were filed, and I know that is something that has been in the works,” Minnelli’s good friend Liz Rosenberg told the Daily News. “I think it was a coincidence that it happened one day after the other.”
Gest, 50, claims the alleged pummelings he endured in 16 months of matrimony have left him in “virtually constant, unrelenting pain.”
The concert producer, who collects Shirley Temple memorabilia, said the “Cabaret” actress damaged him neurologically by hammering him with her fists during vodka-fueled rages.
“My lawyers will respond to the lawsuit in the proper forum,” said Minnelli. “I will continue to focus on my work, my sobriety and my fans who have been so wonderful to me.”
Gest’s lawyer, Raoul Felder, said last night that he wasn’t surprised Minnelli filed divorce papers, and eagerly awaited an opportunity to read them.
“If it is an innocuous divorce, fine,” Felder said. “If it is anything we don’t find acceptable, we have enough stuff to get the entire Yankees and their bullpen a divorce. There is enough there for 18 divorces.”
Among the alleged beatings Gest detailed in his lawsuit, he cites an incident in which he says Minnelli threw a lamp and pummeled his face in a London hotel suite in June, causing him to duck, cover and scream,
“Liza! Stop it! Stop it!”
Felder said he is pleased to hear Minnelli is concentrating on her sobriety, adding that he wished she could have “started at an earlier time.”