Angelina Jolie filed a cross-complaint against her
ex-husband
Brad Pitt on Tuesday, disclosing new details about what she
described in court papers as abusive behavior by him on a private plane in 2016
that led to the dissolution of their marriage.
اضافة اعلان
In a court filing in
Los Angeles, filed as part of a legal
battle over a winery the prominent Hollywood actors once owned together,
lawyers for Jolie stated that negotiations to sell her share of the business to
Pitt had broken down over his demand that she 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.”
Her filing goes on to describe an extended physical and
verbal outburst in September 2016 as Pitt, Jolie and their six children flew
from France to California. “Pitt choked one of the children and struck another
in the face” and “grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her,” the filing states,
adding that at one point “he poured beer on Jolie; at another, he poured beer
and red wine on the children.” Federal authorities, who have jurisdiction over
flights, investigated the incident but declined to bring criminal charges. Days
after the plane trip, Jolie filed for divorce.
A lawyer for Pitt, Anne Kiley, said that Pitt had accepted
responsibility for some things in his past but that he would not accept
responsibility for things he did not do. (In 2016, unnamed people close to Pitt
were quoted in various publications saying that he had not been abusive toward
his children.)
The decoupling of
Jolie and Pitt has stretched on for years,
drawn out by a court battle for custody of their children and, more recently, a
lawsuit instigated by Pitt over the French winery, Château Miraval, that the
couple bought more than a decade ago. Pitt’s lawsuit, filed this year, accused
his ex-wife of violating his “contractual rights” when she sold her half of the
company to a subsidiary of Stoli Group without his approval.
Jolie’s cross complaint said she only sold her stake
elsewhere after talks broke down over his demand for a nondisclosure agreement.
Her filing states that the FBI agent who investigated allegations that Pitt
physically assaulted Jolie and their children on the plane in 2016 had
“concluded that the government had probable cause to charge Pitt with a federal
crime for his conduct that day.”
A redacted FBI report on the case, which was reported on by
several news outlets in August and later obtained by The New York Times, states
that the agent provided the US Attorney’s Office “copies of a probable cause
statement related to this incident.”
“After reviewing the document, representative of the US
Attorney’s Office discussed the merits of this investigation with the case
agent,” the report said. “It was agreed by all parties that criminal charges in
this case would not be pursued due to several factors.”
The FBI report described Jolie as “conflicted on whether or
not to be supportive of charges” related to the case.
Representatives from the FBI and the US Attorney’s Office in
Los Angeles declined to comment.
“She has gone to great lengths to try to shield their
children from reliving the pain Pitt inflicted on the family that day,” Jolie’s
lawyers wrote in the cross-complaint. “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 French winery, known for its rosé, is at the center of a
legal dispute between the divorced couple.
In February, Pitt sued Jolie and her former company,
alleging that she violated his “contractual expectations” when she sold her
interest in the wine company to Tenute del Mondo, a subsidiary of Stoli Group.
According to his lawsuit, the former couple had an understanding that neither
party would sell its share of the winery without the consent of the other.
“Jolie pursued and then consummated the purported sale in
secret, purposely keeping Pitt in the dark, and knowingly violating Pitt’s
contractual rights,” his lawsuit alleged.
Last month, Jolie’s former company, which is now owned by
Stoli Group, countersued Pitt, rebutting his version of events and his claim
that the sale constituted a “hostile takeover.”
In Jolie’s own countersuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior
Court on Tuesday, she said that she opted to sell her share of the wine
business, in part, because she was growing uncomfortable with participating in
an alcohol-related business, considering Pitt’s “acknowledged problem of alcohol
abuse.” Pitt told the Times in 2019 that after Jolie filed for divorce, he
spent time in Alcoholics Anonymous and was committed to sobriety.
Her filing said there was no written or verbal understanding
like the one Pitt described, claiming that Pitt had, in fact, rejected the idea
that there needed to be a plan in case the relationship ended.
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