Brad Pitt
He strikes back in the custody battle
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt continue to fight over the custody of their children Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Vivienne and Knox.
© Jaguar PS / Shutterstock.com
Brad Pitt takes custody to the California Supreme Court. He wants to challenge a verdict in favor of Angelina Jolie.
Brad Pitt (57) strikes back in a custody battle with Angelina Jolie (46). The actor has filed a petition for review of the ongoing custody case with the California Supreme Court. In the document, which is available to the US magazine “People”, he defends himself against the removal of a judge who had actually granted him shared custody.
Pitt won his victory in a legal battle with ex-wife Jolie at the end of May. The private judge John Ouderkirk had stated that the two divorced actors should share custody 50/50. An appeals court ruled, however, that the same judge will be dismissed after Jolie’s motion, as several US media reported unanimously.
Ouderkirk is accused of not having sufficiently disclosed a business relationship with Pitt’s attorneys, which is why his impartiality could be doubted. With the dismissal of the judge, his decision from May is said to have been overturned, making Brad Pitt’s extended visiting rights a thing of the past. In the new motion, the actor’s attorneys claim that Jolie was “made aware of Judge Ouderkirk’s significant professional history with Pitt’s attorney” early on in the custody case. It was only years later that she tried to have him recalled.
Angelina Jolie wants to focus on the wellbeing of children
“After more than four years of litigation that has harmed the children and their father every day, an important and well-considered custody decision is being completely reversed due to an administrative error unrelated to the custody case,” the lawyers criticize. Jolie’s attorney described the counterattack and the questioning of the court decision in a statement that “People” has received as “worrying” and emphasized the correctness of the decision. His client hopes that “Mr. Pitt will partner with her instead to focus on the children’s needs and healing.”
The 46-year-old actress and her screen colleague have been a couple since 2005 and have been married since 2014. In 2016, Jolie filed for divorce. Since then, she and Pitt have been fighting over the custody of their children Pax (17), Zahara (16), Shiloh (15), Vivienne (13), Knox (13) and Maddox (19). The latter is no longer part of the procedure due to the fact that he is of legal age, and it may now drag on.