They were Hollywood’s dream couple for a long time, but then they ended their marriage with a bang: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are still in the War of the Roses 5 years after their divorce – and now scandalous allegations are coming to light again.
The legal team of Angelina Jolie, 48, is currently making shocking allegations. As early as October 2022, the lawyers accused the actress’s ex-husband of outrageous things in a lawsuit. Brad Pitt, 60, became violent during a flight from France to California in 2016, it was claimed at the time. Now a new court file reveals that the alleged physical assault was not an isolated incident.
Angelina Jolie makes further allegations of violence against Brad Pitt
In the documents obtained by People, Jolie claims that Pitt had already physically abused her on the plane before the incident she described. The allegations, which have not yet been made public, are now coming to the table after Angelina’s lawyers filed a request for the release of information on April 4, 2024 as part of the ex-couple’s ongoing legal dispute over their French winery Château Miraval. Brad is suing his former wife for trying to sell her shares in the exclusive winery to a third party.
To the background: Two years ago, Pitt sued his ex-wife and their former company, Nouvel, for selling her half of the winery, violating an agreement they allegedly made not to sell without each other’s consent. He accused Jolie of deliberately keeping him in the dark about her sale to premium wine company Tenute del Mondo, whose parent company is spirits maker Stoli Group, owned by Russian oligarch Yuri Shefler.
A bitter legal dispute that is now giving rise to serious allegations. In the latest lawsuit, Jolie’s lawyers write: “While Pitt’s history of physical abuse of Jolie began long before the family’s plane ride from France to Los Angeles in September 2016, that flight marked the first time that he directed his physical abuse toward the children . Jolie then left him immediately.”
There are said to have been heated arguments during the flight. As the New York Times reported in 2022, the documents said, among other things: “Pitt choked one of the children and hit another in the face.” The actor is also said to have grabbed and shaken his then-wife.
“Everyone was afraid. Many were crying,” is documented in the documents. Pitt is said to have thrown beer on Angelina. He also poured beer and red wine on his children. Everyone tried to protect each other. Pitt still denies the allegations to this day. Jolie is said to have decided to file for divorce shortly after the alleged incidents. An unspeakable War of the Roses followed. It wasn’t just about the shared winery, but above all about the custody of their minor children.
Jolie’s lawyers are bringing out the big guns in the dispute over share sales
With their current move, Angelina’s lawyers apparently want to force disclosure about the fact that Brad allegedly only wanted to agree to the sale of his ex-wife’s estate shares after she had signed a revised confidentiality agreement. In the course of this, they reveal Pitt’s alleged physical attacks on his ex-wife, which they had not previously made an issue of.
According to Jolie’s legal team, Brad tried to silence her client by agreeing to the non-disclosure agreement. He intended to prevent her from disclosing reputation-damaging information publicly. Allegedly, Jolie initially made her ex an offer to sell him her shares and sign a standard non-disclosure agreement. The Oscar winner, however, rejected this offer.
Brad Pitt is silent, but…
Pitt himself is currently not commenting on the new development in the legal dispute. However, a friend of the actor, who allegedly had deeper insights into the legal battle between the two ex-spouses: “This is a pattern of behavior – whenever there is a decision that goes against the other side, they consistently choose to use misleading, introducing inaccurate and/or irrelevant information as a distraction,” the insider tells People, adding, “There was a lengthy custody trial that covered the entire history of their relationship and a judge who listened to all the evidence, still granted him 50/50 custody.”
Jolie’s team, however, assures us that the legal dispute would not have occurred if Pitt had bought her shares when she had given him the opportunity. According to her, Brad turned down the deal because he feared that sealed documents from the custody dispute would be made public without the revised confidentiality agreement he requested.
“Jolie’s sealed records, which included emails, summaries of expected family testimony, and other evidence, caused Pitt to fear that this information could eventually become public,” her lawyers noted. Brad wanted to make sure that Angelina was “contractually obligated to remain silent” about his alleged “personal misconduct, whether related to Miraval or not.”
Opinions differ on this question
However, a brief from Brad Pitt’s legal team from June 2023 offers a different account of what happened: Jolie was the one who proposed an “even broader non-defamation clause” as part of the agreement, while Pitt’s team presented a “narrower” clause “that would “should protect business”.
“The clause also made it clear that Jolie’s freedom of speech will not be restricted in connection with Pitt and Jolie’s divorce or custody proceedings. It expressly stated that: However, this obligation does not limit the ability of a party to make claims, motions in a legal proceeding to ask or make statements,” it says.
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In a statement from Angelina Jolie’s lawyer Paul Murphy, obtained by People on April 4, the lawyer claims: “Mr. Pitt refused to buy Ms. Jolie’s share when she did not want to be silenced by his nondisclosure agreement. By refused to buy her shares and then sued her, Mr. Pitt directly confronted why the declaration was so important to him and what he hoped to bury with it: his abuse of Ms. Jolie and her family. After eight months of delays, he demands Request that the court compel Mr. Pitt to finally provide this evidence.”
An end to the War of the Roses between the former dream couple is apparently far from being in sight. On the contrary: a new chapter now seems to be opening that will be hard to beat in terms of incredible drama.
Sources used: people.com, nytimes.com