Mary-Kate Olsen's Decision During Her Divorce Baffles This Lawyer

Mary-Kate Olsen married Olivier Sarkozy in November 2015, but their marriage didn't last. In April 2020, Olsen signed a petition for divorce, though the proceedings couldn't take place because the New York courts were forced to shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to Us Weekly. It wasn't until the courts reopened that Olsen would officially file legal paperwork to end her five-year marriage. The reason for Olsen and Sarkozy's split wasn't made public, though Page Six reported that things rapidly went downhill after Sarkozy "moved his ex-wife, Charlotte Bernard, their two children and his mother from New York City into the five-bedroom, 4,000-square-foot Bridgehampton mansion he shared with Olsen." 

While Sarkozy may have had good intentions — he was reportedly trying to ensure that his family was safe during the pandemic — a source told Page Six that it ended up being too much for Olsen to handle. "Maybe French people culturally have a different view of marriage, and while Mary-Kate loves his children, it was too much to have his ex-wife living with them during the pandemic. Would you want the ex-wife living with you for an unforeseeable amount of time in the middle of a crisis?" the source pointed out.

However, it's what came next that had people scratching their heads. Keep reading to find out the baffling decision Olsen made.

Things got fairly messy for Mary-Kate Olsen. She was told that her soon-to-be ex-husband Olivier Sarkozy had terminated their apartment lease early, which meant that she needed to move out — and fast. The lease was set to end on May 18, 2020, just a few days after Olsen got the news, according to TMZ. The report indicated that Olsen had requested an extension to move out of the apartment, to give her a little more time to get her things together. The proposed date was May 30, 2020 — just 12 days later. She then filed an emergency petition with the court because, if granted, it "would trigger an automatic court order preventing [Sarkozy] from disposing of her property," TMZ reported. The petition was denied.

Nicki Swift caught up with divorce lawyer Christina Previte, Esq., to discuss Olsen's emergency petition. "On its face, it doesn't seem that a 12-day differential was a good enough reason to file an emergent application with the court," Previte said. "As an attorney who handles divorces with varying levels of conflict, from the most amicable to significantly high-conflict, Mary-Kate should have been advised to attempt to resolve this issue amicably through counsel," she went on. She believes that Olsen should have tried to resolve the issue by another means, despite the "high-conflict dynamic between the parties." Read on to find out what else Previte said.

Christina Previte told Nicki Swift that the situation that Mary-Kate Olsen and Olivier Sarkozy were in was "what it looks like" when "high emotions" are at play. "Ordinary, mundane decisions become a battle to fight rather than just an ordinary course of business. I often have to tell clients to pick their battles, because there will be many, especially in a high-conflict divorce, and ask them, 'Is this really the one you want to fight?' I would have told Mary-Kate the same thing," Previte said.

She went on to say that "it's hard to speculate about any mistakes [Olsen] may have made," because Previte doesn't know more about what was going on behind closed doors. However, she does feel strongly that Olsen could have tried to resolve the issue in a different way. At the same time, Previte acknowledges that it's entirely possible that Olsen attempted to go about things "reasonably and amicably" but may have been "stonewalled" by Sarkozy. If this happened to be the case, Previte says that she "would have advised her to file an emergent application for access to the apartment," rather than what Olsen actually ended up doing, which was trying to expedite her divorce filing during a pandemic.

Nevertheless, on January 25, 2021, Olsen and Sarkozy's divorce was finalized, according to Us Weekly.