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Last week, I saw the news that Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Erin Brockovich, the Ocean’s Eleven films) was hit by a paternity suit. It made me sad, because I thought he and his wife were tight – I have a lot of affection for his wife, Jules Asner, who used to be the cohost of E! News back when I was in college. She was really pretty and a good entertainment journalist, and her red carpet interviews were always tight. The rise of Dame Seacrest has only made me miss her more. Anyway, I didn’t write about Soderbergh’s paternity drama because I was waiting to see if it was just some random thing or if there was something juicy there.

As it turns out, Soderbergh did father a child with a woman in Australia, and he is acknowledging his paternity. BUT – the story is still strange. He and Jules are still together, but they’re claiming that they were “separated” when Soderbergh fathered the child, back in December 2009.

The Oscar-winning filmmaker was slapped with a paternity suit Thursday in New York, filed by an Australian woman who claims they had an affair in December 2009 and he’s the father of her now 5-month-old daughter. Well, she’s apparently right. He admits to being the father and his smokin’ wife, model and former E! host Jules Asner, already knows all about it.

A source close to the couple confirms to E! News that Soderbergh and Asner were separated while he lived in Australia to direct a play he wrote, Tot Mom, which opened at the Sydney Theatre Company in December 2009.

The very month, “including but not limited to,” that Frances Lawrencina Anderson claims that she and the Traffic director had “sexual intercourse on many occasions covering all possible dates of [conception]…and as a result thereof, she became pregnant,” according to the suit filed Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court.

He “has acknowledged that he is the father of the child verbally and by offering to pay various medical and other expenses incurred by [Anderson] in relation to the pregnancy,” the suit, obtained by the New York Daily News, continues.

True that. Our source says that Soderbergh came clean to his wife immediately upon hearing he had fathered a child and that he has been trying to work things out with Anderson for months.

“Steven really felt like he was trying to do the right thing and being very generous,” the source says. “They’ve been trying to settle this for almost a year.”

Soderbergh’s camp is convinced that Anderson went after the director where he lives because Australian law would only obligate him to financially provide for daughter Pearl Button Anderson, who was born Aug. 30, 2010. Stating that Anderson is not able to sufficiently support her daughter, the suit demands that Soderbergh pay for the mother’s health insurance, in addition to child support.

“It was a two-night stand, Steve and Jules are fine,” says a source close to Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh, who’s married to Jules Asner. He was slapped with a paternity suit last week after having an affair with an Australian woman.

So what’s really going on here?

“He was down in Australia, directing a play,” said a source super-close to Stephen and his wife, Jules, who I used to work with at here E! “They were separated at the time, and, of course, this woman got pregnant, as luck would have it.”

Does he want to take care of the kid?

“Take care, yes,” said our tight S.S. insider, “but get to know? No. He just wants to pay for the child’s support, as he should.”

Soderbergh, we’re told, has been trying to settle the matter for almost a year, but the woman’s attorneys keep rejecting his offers. And then she decided to sue in the U.S., where she stands a greater chance of prevailing, at least monetarily.

“It was just a two-night affair,” reveals the Soderbergh source.

Also, our inside camper insists things are fine on the Jules/Steven front, and that they’re getting along well after their brief separation. Asner even joked to her husband, when he went off to work with Jude Law in the thriller he’s now directing, Contagion: “Well, at least you’ll have talking points with Jude.”

[From E! Newstwo stories]

Even if Soderbergh came clean to Jules about fathering a child, is it still weird that Jules would be cracking paternity jokes and that she and Steven are solid now? I don’t know. I’m also not sure that I buy this whole “separation” story, but if that’s what they’re sticking with, so be it. Maybe Jules was initially upset but this other woman is just trying to cash in big time, and Jules is just supporting Steven during this time.

Sigh… I miss Steve Kmetko too.

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Photos courtesy of WENN.

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