Brad Pitt has denied Angelina Jolie’s allegations that he “choked” and “struck” their children in a contentious incident on the couple’s private jet in 2016.
Pitt’s representative told Page Six these latest allegations are “completely untrue”, as the former couple engages in a fierce battle over custody and the separation of their assets. In 2021, Jolie sold her half in their joint French winery, Chateau Miraval. Pitt sued, claiming they had agreed to get the other’s consent before selling any joint assets. Jolie counter-sued, claiming such an agreement never existed and that in selling her share of the winery, she’d be granted “financial independence” from Pitt and the opportunity to “have some form of peace and closure to this deeply painful and traumatic chapter of her and their children’s lives.”
Jolie filed for divorce in 2016 and in court documents shared with CNN, more details of an alleged incident on their private jet were brought to light, purportedly taking place just five days prior to Jolie’s filing of the divorce papers. In the section titled “Why Jolie Separated from Pitt” of her counterclaim against her ex, the document alleges Pitt got into an argument with one of their six children. When Jolie asked Pitt what was wrong, he allegedly “verbally attacked” her and “grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her, and then grabbed her shoulders and shook her again before pushing her into the bathroom wall.” The document also claims “Pitt choked one of the children and struck another in the face. Some of the children pleaded with Pitt to stop. They were all frightened. Many were crying.”
In response to these new allegations, Pitt’s rep emphatically denied them. They told CNN that Jolie’s “story continues to evolve each time she tells it with new, unsubstantiated claims. Brad has accepted responsibility for what he did but will not for things he didn’t do. These new allegations are completely untrue.” Some of the details of the document had been reported on before with the release of a heavily redacted FBI report in August 2022. No arrests or charges were made at the time in relation to the incident. “In response to allegations made following a flight within the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States which landed in Los Angeles carrying Mr. Brad Pitt and his children, the FBI has conducted a review of the circumstances and will not pursue further investigation. No charges have been filed in this matter,” FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said in a statement to CNN at the time.
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“All parties have had this information for nearly six years and was used in previous legal proceedings. There is nothing new here and serves no purpose other than being a media stunt meant to inflict pain,” a source close to Pitt said of the August report. The dissolution of Pitt and Jolie’s marriage was granted in 2019 but their legal battle over property and custody has continued ever since.
In an interview with Vogue India in June 2020, Jolie gave a reason, albeit a vague one, for her split from Pitt. “I separated for the wellbeing of my family. It was the right decision,” she said. “I continue to focus on their healing. Some have taken advantage of my silence, and the children see lies about themselves in the media, but I remind them that they know their own truth and their own minds. In fact, they are six very brave, very strong young people.”
Pitt, meanwhile, recently showed a collection of his own artwork at an exhibition in Finland, in collaboration with Australian musician Nick Cave and sculptor, Thomas Houseago. “It’s about, you know, where have I gotten it wrong in my relationships? Where have I misstepped? Where I am complicit?” he said in an interview with Finnish broadcaster, YLE. “It was born out of ownership of really what I call a radical inventory of self, getting really, brutally honest with me and … taking account of those I may have hurt and moments I’ve just gotten wrong.”
Pitt told GQ in an interview in 2017 that he was drinking too much alcohol the year prior. “Personally, I can’t remember a day since I got out of college when I wasn’t boozing or had a spliff, or something.,” he told the magazine. “And you realize that a lot of it is, um—cigarettes, you know, pacifiers. And I’m running from feelings. I’m really, really happy to be done with all of that. I mean I stopped everything except boozing when I started my family. But even this last year, you know—things I wasn’t dealing with. I was boozing too much. It’s just become a problem.” He also alluded to trying to overcome some toxic masculinity issues. “I grew up with a Father-knows-best/war mentality—the father is all-powerful, super strong—instead of really knowing the man and his own self-doubt and struggles,” he said. “And it’s hit me smack in the face with our divorce: I gotta be more. I gotta be more for them. I have to show them. And I haven’t been great at it.”
Long before his marriage and eventual divorce from Jolie, Pitt’s ex E.G. Daily (whom he dated in the 80s) said he was a “really intense” person—but not for reasons you’d expect. “I think he was really intense about his work,” Daily said. “When you saw him, it was more like seething in him underneath,” she said in a clip from his True Hollywood Story episode, which aired in April 2021. “What I could feel from him was a really strong, visceral drive towards something really big.”
If you or someone you know is experiencing violence at home, call the National Domestic Abuse Hotline at 800-799-7233 or Text START to 88788.
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