All Angelina Jolie wants is for Brad Pitt to “end the fighting” and drop his multimillion-dollar lawsuit against her. But if he doesn’t, her lawyer said in a new statement, she’s prepared to bring to light evidence that he’s “afraid” to the public.
Jolie and Pitt have been locked in a protracted legal battle since February 2022, when he sued her for selling her half of their French vineyard the year before, allegedly violating a verbal agreement they had made that he would buy her out.
Meanwhile, Jolie’s team has maintained that negotiations to sell to Pitt collapsed after he demanded she “sign a nondisclosure agreement contractually prohibiting her from discussing Pitt’s physical and emotional abuse of her and their children outside of court.” Pitt’s lawyers have denied this.
In early April, their battle took a turn when Jolie’s attorneys filed a motion seeking all of Pitt’s communications with third parties regarding an infamous incident aboard their family’s private plane in 2016, arguing that such materials were “highly relevant” to their case. Earlier this week, Pitt’s attorneys responded by slamming the request as “broad and intrusive” and characterizing it as a “sensational fishing expedition,” according to documents obtained by People at that time. They asked that Jolie’s motion be denied.
On Wednesday, Jolie’s attorney, Paul Murphy, told the magazine that Pitt’s alleged demand for a sweeping nondisclosure agreement was an attempt to “punish and control” her and cover up “his personal misconduct and abuse.”
Murphy continued: “Those actions are central to these proceedings. We are not at all surprised that Mr Pitt is afraid to hand over the documents that demonstrate these facts.
“As Angelina once again asks Mr. Pitt to end the feud and finally put their family on a clear path to healing, unless Mr. Pitt withdraws his lawsuit, Angelina has no choice but to gather the evidence necessary to prove his allegations false,” the attorney concluded.
A spokesperson for Pitt declined to comment to the magazine on Wednesday.
In their response earlier this week, Pitt’s lawyers alleged that Inglorious bastards star had “voluntarily offered to produce documents sufficient to demonstrate everything that took place during the flight that precipitated the ex-couple’s separation — the event that Jolie said made Pitt’s request for confidentiality so offensive here.”
But Jolie, Pitt’s lawyers said, rejected his offer and “required him to communicate with third parties — including his most trusted advisors — about sensitive issues such as the therapy he voluntarily underwent after the flight incident in an effort to better himself, the ‘drug and alcohol testing’ he reportedly underwent, his alleged ‘excessive use or abuse of alcohol,’ and other actions taken in the aftermath of the flight.”
Many details of what happened aboard the 2016 flight remained unclear until October 2022, when Jolie filed a counter-suit describing Pitt’s alleged verbal and physical tirade as the family flew from France to California.
About 90 minutes after takeoff, Pitt demanded that Jolie come to the back of the plane with him, where he pulled her into the bathroom and began yelling at her, the counter-complaint alleges. “Pitt grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her, and then grabbed her shoulders and shook her again before pushing her against the bathroom wall,” it alleges.
The filing further alleges that Pitt lunged at one of their children who tried to defend their mother; injured Jolie’s back and elbow when she tried to hold him back; “choked one of the children and punched another in the face”; and poured alcohol on Jolie and the children before the plane landed in Los Angeles.
Five days later, Jolie filed for divorce, the counter-complaint states.
Pitt and Jolie married in 2014 after a 10-year relationship. They were declared single in 2019 but have not finalized their divorce. The couple have six children: Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh and twins Vivienne and Knox.
“Both parties are still in talks,” a source close to the couple said People earlier this month of the divorce proceedings, “but it’s not final yet.”