American actress Angelina Jolie has alleged in a new court filing that ex Brad Pitt was abusive toward her prior to the 2016 plane incident that led her to filing for divorce.
In a legal battle over their French winery Château Miraval, on April 4, the actress’s legal team filed a motion seeking to release communications they say would prove Pitt, 60, would not let Jolie, 48, sell her share of the winery to him unless she agreed to a “more onerous” and “expansive” NDA.
Jolie’s lawyers make the claim: “While Pitt’s history of physical abuse of Jolie started well before the family’s September 2016 plane trip from France to Los Angeles, this flight marked the first time he turned his physical abuse on the children as well. Jolie then immediately left him.”
Reacting to the allegations, a friend of Pitt that followed the litigation over the years said:
“This is a pattern of behavior — 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.”
“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.”
According to Jolie’s side, the winery lawsuit would not have happened if Pitt had purchased Jolie’s share when she made the offer.
“Jolie’s sealed filing, which included emails, summaries of the family’s expected testimony and other evidence, caused Pitt to fear that the information could eventually become public,” her lawyers write, adding that Pitt wanted Jolie to “contractually bind herself to that silence” about his alleged “personal misconduct, whether related to Miraval or not.”
