Brody Dalle pleads not guilty to contempt in ongoing custody battle with Josh Homme

The Distillers singer and guitarist Brody Dalle has pleaded not guilty to contempt in her ongoing custody battle with her ex-husband, Queens of the Stone Age singer and guitarist Josh Homme, Rolling Stone reported.

The charges originated in early September, when Dalle reportedly violated the pair's equal custody agreement by not releasing their two sons, aged 10 and 5, into Homme’s care. 

Dalle subsequently filed a restraining order against Homme on behalf of the two boys – alleging that Homme grabbed, flicked and hit the children and made threats about Dalle’s partner. The request was denied by both Los Angeles and Santa Monica courts.

Though Homme was subsequently granted 15-minute FaceTime calls with his two sons, a restraining order against Homme filed by the couple's 15-year-old daughter remains standing.

The judge handling the case – Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lawrence Riff – said he was leaning toward appointing around-the-clock monitoring in Dalle and Homme's homes starting on Friday, October 15, when Homme is due to resume his custodial time with his two sons.

“Her pleadings speak for themselves in the sense that she’s expressed how the children feel,” Dalle’s lawyer, Doreen Olson, said in a statement after the hearing. “We just want the children to be healthy. We want the children to be helped.”

“That’s all I’m asking for, that my kids are safe," Dalle said to Rolling Stone as she left the courthouse. "We have to protect kids. We should always protect kids."

Homme, a few minutes after Dalle's departure from the courthouse, gave his own statement to Rolling Stone, “The hardest job in the world is to be a mom, but dads are important too. I’d wade through anything for my kids, even this."