THE CLAIM DNA COULD NOT SUPPORT

In 2009, a Canadian woman named Karen Sala brought a paternity claim against Keanu Reeves.

She alleged that Reeves had fathered at least one — and potentially all four — of her adult children. Sala said they had been involved in a relationship before, during and after her marriage, had lived together and that Reeves had attended the births of some of the children.

Reeves denied ever meeting her.

The financial claim was extraordinary. Sala sought approximately $3 million a month in spousal support, backdated to 2006, and around $150,000 a month in child support dating back to 1988.

The existence of court proceedings gave the allegation a seriousness it had not earned through evidence. Headlines paired Reeves's name with a claim involving four children and demands potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

A DNA test was conducted.

The result excluded Reeves as the biological father of Sala's children.

Sala disputed the result. In court, she suggested that the test might have been tampered with or that Reeves had used hypnosis to influence it. She also maintained that she had known him under another identity and alleged that he sometimes disguised himself as other people.

On 7 January 2010, Ontario Superior Court judge Fred Graham dismissed the case.

He found the allegations so incredible that no reasonable judge would accept them and said allowing the matter to proceed to trial would waste limited judicial resources. The DNA evidence had already answered the central factual question.

There was no trial, settlement or compromise. The claim failed at the stage when the court decided whether there was any genuine issue left to determine.

Reeves was not the father. He had not had the relationship described and maintained that he had never met the claimant.

Celebrity frequently attracts stories built from anonymous sources, implication or rumour. This allegation went further: it entered a courtroom and demanded enormous monthly payments.

That did not make it credible.

A filed claim created the headlines. A DNA test ended the case.

SOURCES