Shortly after divorce, Joshua Jackson and Jodie Turner-Smith custody dispute escalates
Less than a month after finalizing their divorce, Joshua Jackson and Jodie Turner-Smith are locked in a custody dispute.
In a May 29 filing, Jackson requested that the court order their daughter Juno, 5, to continue attending the same Calabasas school for the 2025-26 school year and for both parents to reach an agreement before any school change is made.
In his filing, the former "Dawson's Creek" star alleged that Turner-Smith, a fellow actor, had failed to communicate with him about changing their daughter's school, and instead chose a new campus over 45 minutes from his home by car.
Paste BN has reached out to Jackson and Turner Smith's representatives for comment.
In a lengthy parenting plan proposed by Jackson's legal team, the actor outlined a desire to keep a relatively stable schedule for Juno despite both parents' careers in the entertainment industry.
Turner-Smith, who is currently starring on "The Agency," will be filming in London throughout next year, the filing claims, and Jackson, who lost his home in the wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles in January, also expects to be filming, but his project shoots stateside.
He plans to move back into the home once it is rebuilt, his lawyers say. The property is a matter of previous dispute for the couple – in a December filing, Turner-Smith said Jackson continues to claim that the Topanga home is his sole property, despite the actress allegedly contributing $800,000 to its down payment.
Arguing in his filing that Turner-Smith was attempting to bend Juno's schooling environment to correspond more easily with her schedule as an oft-traveling model and actress, Jackson doubled down on what he said was the "critical importance" of a consistent peer group and school location.
"I started acting at a young age. I have spent a lot of time with on-set or on-location tutors. Even in the best case, it cannot begin to provide a child with the same nurturing and enrichment, peer relationships and social skills that a classroom and school community environment provides," he wrote.
Referencing the tumult of several years defined by family separation and a natural disaster that leveled their family home, Jackson insisted that a school change would be detrimental.
"After all of the changes that Juno has had to adapt to, her parents' divorce, and the stress of having our home and her possessions burn to the ground, adding an unnecessary school change cannot be in her interests," he wrote.
Jackson and Turner-Smith, who began dating after meeting at Usher's 40th birthday party in 2018, wed in August 2019 and welcomed their daughter in 2020. They separated in 2023 and then finalized their divorce in May.