Billionaire Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones faced ugly insults and character attacks on Monday as he faced off at a civil trial against the woman who claims to be his daughter.

Jones is seeking $1.6 million in attorneys’ fees he spent defending himself against Alexandra Davis’ claims.

An attorney for the 27-year-old Davis told jurors during opening statements that Jones, 81, testified in a deposition that he didn’t care if he was Davis’ father and was focused on “protecting his real family.”

“That’s a very Jones thing to do,” defense attorney Jay Gray said while pointing at a stone-faced Jones.

“This case is about broken promises,” continued Gray, of the firm Bergman Gray in Dallas. “Above all else, it is about broken promises to his wife. Alex Davis never promised anything; a 2-year-old child cannot promise anything.”

The courtroom gallery was packed Monday with over 50 members of the press, witnesses and attorney staff.

Charles Babcock, of the firm Jackson Walker in Houston, represented Jones.

He told jurors Davis had approached Jones for money several times since she turned 18 years old in 2014. “Mr. Jones finally said, ‘Enough is enough, too much is too much,’” the attorney said.

Jones had an affair with Davis’ mother, Cynthia Davis-Spencer, in the 1990s in Little Rock, Arkansas. The two purportedly met at the airport, where Davis-Spencer worked. Though Jones has denied he’s Davis’ father, he and Davis-Spencer entered into a settlement and confidentiality agreement in 1998, when Davis was 2 years old, and Jones paid millions of dollars for her benefit in the decades that followed.

Davis and Davis-Spencer appeared on the reality television show “Big Rich Texas” and Davis has since worked as a congressional staffer for U.S. Representative Ronny Jackson, a Republican in Amarillo.

After she reached adulthood, Davis began a legal campaign against Jones. She first sued him in Dallas County in 2022, seeking to get out of the settlement, but dropped the case before a ruling was issued.

Jones claims his privacy contract with Davis-Spencer was breached when the lawsuit was filed identifying him as Davis’ father, and wants to recover the money he spent defending himself.

In February, Dallas County District Judge Sandra Jackson ordered Jones to take a paternity test. An appeal is pending.

Davis also sued Jones for defamation in Texarkana federal court in March 2023, citing Jones’s claims that he was being “extorted” and “shaken down.” U.S. District Judge Robert Schroeder partially dismissed the suit in December 2023, and gave Davis a second chance to clear a higher bar to prove defamation since she qualified as a limited public figure, but dismissed her second complaint in March.

The judge cited evidence that Davis requested money from Jones four times between 2017 and 2021.

Jones filed his counterclaim for breach of contract in May 2023 seeking a declaration that the parties are still bound by the settlement agreement. In exchange for Davis-Spencer agreeing not to seek to establish paternity through the courts and maintaining confidentiality under the settlement, Jones says, he paid her a lump sump of $375,000 and established two trust funds for Davis.

The team owner claims Davis received 230 payments totaling approximately $1.9 million during her childhood, including $70,000 for a new Range Rover and $33,000 for a “sweet 16″ birthday party.

After Davis turned 18 years old, Jones says he made 140 additional payments totaling approximately $1.2 million, including $270,000 for four years of tuition and expenses at Southern Methodist University and $24,000 for a post-graduation trip to Asia.

Since at least 2015, Jones has also paid for Davis’ apartment rent, he says in his 15-page counterclaim, calculating that he’s ponied up approximately $3.2 million to date.

Jones claims the trust payments stopped when Davis turned 21 years old in December 2017 — and that one month earlier, Davis told one of Jones’ lawyers at a Dallas steakhouse that she wanted to be paid more money, which Jones wasn’t obligated to do.

An audible groan came from the gallery behind Jones’ legal team when Babcock told jurors Davis asked for an additional $20 million, and sought a contract of her own, telling Jones, “I don’t care what agreement was made with my mom.”

Gray told jurors Davis didn’t know Jones was her father until she was 8 years old; she drew “an alien coming down from outer space” when illustrating her family at school. He said she was told his identity at the urging of teachers but she had to stay within the terms of the settlement.

“Can you imagine a mother telling a daughter to never say who her father is?” Gray asked.

“We can’t make him a good man or a good father,” he said of Jones. “We don’t have to help him bully his daughter.”

Judge Schroeder ruled earlier this month that the parties’ settlement is valid. The question of whether Davis ratified the settlement when she turned 18 years old, he said, is a question of fact that the jury should decide.

Trial is expected to last one week. Jerry Jones’ wife Eugenia Jones and children, Stephen Jones, Jerry Jones Jr. and Charlotte Jones, are all potential witnesses.The children are all listed as executives and co-owners of the Dallas Cowboys.

Jones bought the Cowboys from Bum Bright in 1989 for $140 million. Forbes recently valued the team at $9 billion.