Angelina Jolie has detailed alleged physical abuse by former husband Brad Pitt in a new lawsuit.
Back in August, a new report revealed that Jolie was the plaintiff in an anonymous complaint filed against the FBI in 2016 after the organisation closed an investigation into alleged domestic assault by Pitt. Pitt’s team has denied all allegations of wrongdoing related to the alleged incident.
The alleged incident onboard an aeroplane travelling from Europe to the US on September 14, 2016, reportedly also involved one of the pair’s children. The couple’s then-15-year-old son, Maddix, allegedly became involved in the altercation. Pitt was alleged to have become physical with Maddix, as the latter attempted to diffuse the situation between his parents.
Now, Jolie has shared a new cross-complaint as part of an ongoing legal battle over the pair’s co-owned French winery following their divorce. In the complaint, reported first by The New York Times, Jolie’s lawyers allege that an agreement for Jolie to sell her share of the property to Pitt hinged on Pitt’s demand that Jolie sign “a nondisclosure agreement that would have contractually prohibited her from speaking outside of court about Pitt’s physical and emotional abuse of her and their children”.
In the court filings, Jolie alleges that during the plane journey in 2016, Pitt accused her of being “too deferential” to their children, at which point Pitt allegedly “grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her, and then grabbed her shoulders and shook her again before pushing her into the bathroom wall.”
It added: “Pitt then punched the ceiling of the plane numerous times, prompting Jolie to leave the bathroom.”
The new court papers then allege that the pair’s children came to their mother’s defence, at which point Pitt “choked one of the children and struck another in the face”.
Jolie’s lawyers added that she had “gone to great lengths to try to shield their children from reliving the pain Pitt inflicted on the family that day, but when Pitt filed this lawsuit seeking to reassert control over Jolie’s financial life and compel her to rejoin her ex-husband as a frozen-out business partner, Pitt forced Jolie to publicly defend herself on these issues for the first time.”
The initial anonymous lawsuit against the FBI came after Jolie filed a report in 2016 with an FBI agent that alleged she was “physically and verbally assaulted” by her then-husband, Pitt.
The FBI launched an investigation into the situation, but concluded – after finding no proof of malicious intent on Pitt’s behalf – that they would not be conducting any further investigation. “In response to allegations made… the FBI has conducted a review of the circumstances and will not pursue further investigation,” their statement read. “No charges have been filed in this matter.”
Pitt was also the subject of a “child abuse investigation” in relation to Maddix’s purported involvement in the alleged plane incident. It was conducted by the Los Angeles Department of Child and Family Services, who reportedly later cleared the actor of any wrongdoing.
In legal documents obtained by Entertainment Tonight back in April, Jolie, under the Freedom of Information Act, anonymously sought to obtain paperwork relating to the FBI’s since-closed “investigation of an incident of domestic violence” in an effort to “better understand the FBI’s investigation and obtain information necessary for her children to receive medical care and trauma counselling”.
Per Variety, the complaint (amended in August) also read: “Information withheld by the DOJ and the FBI contains evidence of the harm. The persistent denial of that information to Ms. Doe [Jolie] a victim of the assault herself — has hampered, and continues to hamper, her efforts to obtain for her children necessary ongoing care and medical attention, and has further harmed the children in the family law system.”
The alleged incident and subsequent series of events has long been speculated as the reason for Jolie’s divorce filing – whereby she requested sole custody of her six children – just five days after the September 14 flight.