Billionaire says he's not the father of child in $320,000-a-month divorce claim

It's payback time for Kirk Kerkorian, the 84-year-old American billionaire whose ex-wife is suing him for a gobsmacking $320,000 (£226,000) a month in support for their three-year-old daughter, Kira.

Three weeks after Lisa Bonder Kerkorian went public with the assertion that her darling could not go without $144,000 a month in travel expenses, $14,000 for toys and playdates and almost $10,000 for food and restaurants among other essential items, the wily old mogul has responded with the equally stunning assertion that he is not the father of the child, and can prove it.

In court papers just filed with the Los Angeles Superior Court, Mr Kerkorian explains that, as his wife's financial demands began to escalate, a couple of years ago he became suspicious that he was being set up. He submitted strands of Kira's and his hair for a DNA test and learned, in November 2000, that she could not be his.

Mr Kerkorian, who runs the MGM movie studio in Hollywood and the MGM Grand casino in Las Vegas, among other interests, said he still feels attached to Kira and intends to pay for her upkeep. But, he insisted, there were limits.

In his filing, he asks the court to award child support of no more than $50,000 a month, an amount that "already substantially exceeds any amount ever ordered by the Los Angeles Superior Court or any other court in the United States", in the words of Mr Kerkorian's lawyer, Dennis Wasser.

Just as Mrs Kerkorian used her public court filing to embarrass her ex-husband, so Mr Kerkorian used his to cast her in the worst possible light. The money, he argued, was clearly for the mother, not the child: "The truth of the matter is that Kira is not able to comprehend the difference between a lifestyle based upon $30,000 per month or $300,000 per month; nor does she have any meaningful way to benefit from any such difference. It is quite reasonable to believe that Kira would be far happier eating a 'Happy Meal' at McDonald's and playing at McDonaldsland than she would be sitting at a dinner table in an upscale, adult restaurant being shushed by a coterie of nannies."

Contradicting Mrs Kerkorian's picture of a happy relationship extending even beyond their bizarre 28-day marriage in 1999, the court papers said the couple stopped living together in 1995. Their relationship deteriorated from there on in.

The last time they spoke was Christmas Day, when Mrs Kerkorian allegedly tossed a toyphone he had given Kira over his gate in anger. She then threatened to toss a pet bunny over the fence too.