Angelina Jolie is ready for her and Brad Pitt’s drawn-out legal battle to end as allegations of abuse continue to surface.
“Pitt is drawing all of this out of Angelina,” a source tells Us Weekly on Friday, April 5. “She does not want to be here, she does not want to be raising any of these facts, and she is doing it only because Pitt’s lawsuit against her is forcing her to defend herself. It’s incredibly sad and she just wishes he could move on and let her be.”
Jolie’s legal team filed a motion on Thursday, April 4, claiming that Pitt, 48, was abusive toward the actress before the now-infamous 2016 airplane incident with their kids that led to divorce. (Pitt and Jolie share six kids: Maddox, 22, Pax, 20, Zahara, 19, Shiloh, 17, and twins Vivienne and Knox, 15.)
Jolie alleged in Thursday’s motion that Pitt’s “physical abuse” toward Jolie started “well before the family’s September 2016 plane trip from France to Los Angeles.” (Jolie previously claimed that during the 2016 flight, Pitt was “physically and emotionally abusive” to her and the kids. Pitt was cleared by the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services and the FBI, who looked into the alleged incident.)
“This flight marked the first time he turned his physical abuse on the children as well,” Thursday’s filing claimed. “Jolie then immediately left him.”
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images
The ongoing legal battle between the exes — who separated in 2016 and were declared legally single in 2019 — is over the ownership of their French winery Chateau Miraval and the custody of their minor children.
A second source told Us on Friday that Jolie’s legal team has access to “emails, photos, and testimony” that were “presented under seal in the custody case that would help her in this matter.” However, she “doesn’t want to use” them, the insider added. “If this does go to trial, she will be forced to use that evidence in the trial whether she wants to or not,” the source concluded.
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt WireImage (2)
Thursday’s court filing came in hopes that a judge would release communications that will allegedly prove Pitt wouldn’t allow Jolie to share her portion of Chateau Miraval if she didn’t agree to an “expansive” NDA.
“Mr. Pitt refused to purchase Ms. Jolie’s interest when she would not be silenced by his NDA,” attorney Paul Murphy, who represents Jolie, told Us in a statement on Friday. “By refusing to buy her interest but then suing her, Mr. Pitt put directly at issue why that NDA was so important to him and what he hoped it would bury: his abuse of Ms. Jolie and their family. After eight months of delays, this motion asks the Court to force Mr. Pitt to finally produce that evidence.”
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt called it quits in 2016, but the incident that led to their split has remained contentious years after their divorce. The Girl, Interrupted star filed for divorce from the Seven actor in September 2016, shortly after the pair flew from France to California with their six children: Maddox, Pax, Zahara, […]
Months prior, Pitt’s team claimed in a July 2023 filing that Jolie was the one who wanted an “even broader non-disparagement clause” as part of their divorce agreement. The actor allegedly responded with a “narrower” one that was “intended to protect the business.”
A friend of Pitt who is familiar with the ongoing legal debacle told Us on Thursday that the ongoing lawsuits are “a pattern of behavior” between the exes.
“Whenever there is a decision that goes against the other side they consistently choose to introduce misleading, inaccurate and/or irrelevant information as a distraction,” they shared. “There was a lengthy custody trial that involved the entire history of their relationship and a judge who heard all the evidence still granted him 50/50 custody.”