Leighton Meester Wins Legal Battle Against Estranged Mom

Leighton Meester Wins Legal Battle

After nearly a year of fierce legal battles against her estranged mother, a judge has banged the gavel in Leighton Meester’s favor.

In a suit first filed in July 2011, the actress claimed her ex-con mom accepted funds sent to her for the care of Meester’s disabled younger brother — Lex — and used the cash for plastic surgery, Botox and hair extensions instead. The incident proved to be the final straw in the tumultous relationship for Leighton, who plays silver spooner Blair Woodard on the recently axed Gossip Girl.
The previous February, The Roommate actress, 25, fired Constance “Connie” Meester, 54, as her manager after the former real estate agent was hit with a restraining order for allegedly harassing a neighboring family. Los Angeles therapist Laurel Wiig says Connie threatened to “hunt down and kill” both her and her minor son after the pair had a falling out on January 21. In court papers filed in Los Angeles last winter, The Wiigs charged that the elder Meester is an “addict,” who vowed to “fuck us up.”
Leighton claimed that her brother suffered from serious medical conditions, so she would send $7,500 a month to help cover his expenses. Her suit referred to Constance’s claim that she had entered into an oral agreement with her daughter that stipulated that Leighton pay her a monthly allowance of $10,000 — which is why she splashed the cash on herself.
If for any reason Leighton defaulted, Connie threatened to sue the star for a sum of $3 million. Leighton, who denied there was any such agreement, asked the court to declare that no such contract existed between the Meester Women.
Earlier this week, a presiding judge slammed Constance’s claims and ruled that there had never been such an agreement. Though she won the case, Leighton was not seeking to recover any money, she simply wanted her mother out of her life so she could focus on her career.
The suit is just the last chapter in the story of Constance’s checkered past. She spent time in federal prison in the 1980s after she was convicted of assisting a drug ring that transported thousands of pounds of marijuana from Jamaica to the U.S.
Leighton was born while her mother was serving time in a Texas halfway house as part of her sentence for involvement in the ring.