A lawyer for Brad Pitt has responded to abuse allegations that were detailed at length this week in a legal document filed by ex-wife Angelina Jolie, saying Pitt isn’t about to cop to any false accusations.
“Brad has owned everything he’s responsible for from day one – unlike the other side – but he’s not going to own anything he didn’t do,” attorney Anne Kiley said Thursday in a statement to the Associated Press.
This combination photo shows Angelina Jolie at a premiere in Los Angeles on Sept. 30, 2019, left, and Brad Pitt at a special screening on Sept. 18, 2019. A new court filing from Jolie alleges that on a 2016 flight, Pitt grabbed her by the head and shook her then choked one of their children and struck another when they tried to defend her. The descriptions of abuse on the private flight came in a countersuit Jolie filed Thursday in the couple’s dispute over a winery they co-owned. Associated Press file
While Jolie’s allegations made big headlines this week, they aren’t exactly new. The ones in this week’s filing nearly mirror those found in an FBI document that went public in August, with one notable addition: In the Tuesday filing, Jolie alleged Pitt choked one of his children in 2016 during the divorce-precipitating incident on a private flight from France to the U.S. It also alleges Pitt struck another child in the face.
The FBI and Los Angeles County’s Department of Children and Family Services both investigated Jolie’s allegations shortly after that flight, around the time the “Girl, Interrupted” actor filed for divorce. Pitt was never charged in connection with the incident, either by the U.S. attorney’s office or on the advice of DCFS.
A Los Angeles law enforcement source told the Los Angeles Times in 2016 that no punching or hitting had been alleged.
Since then, Kiley said in Thursday’s statement, Pitt “has been on the receiving end of every type of personal attack and misrepresentation. … Brad will continue to respond in court as he has consistently done.”
Attorneys for Jolie and representatives for Pitt did not respond immediately Friday to requests for comment.
Jolie included the detailed abuse allegations in a counterclaim to a breach of contract lawsuit Pitt filed against her in February, attempting to unwind the sale of her half of Chateau Miraval and its winery to Tenute del Mondo, a subsidiary of Stoli Group. Pitt said in the lawsuit that the couple had an understanding that neither would sell their share without the other’s approval.
Jolie’s cross-claim states that no such agreement, written, oral or implied, ever existed.
The filing notes that the 2008 purchase of Chateau Miraval was “meticulously documented by counsel from at least three countries” due to complicated ownership before Pitt and Jolie took over. Then it quotes Pitt’s business manager as writing, “Early in the process I raised the issue of a buy / sell agreement between A & B but was told by Brad it wasn’t necessary for two reasonable people to have such an agreement.”
The “Maleficent” actor said in the filing that negotiations between her and Pitt over selling him her share of the property broke down after he demanded she sign a nondisclosure agreement as part of the deal.
That NDA supposedly would have prevented her from discussing any details of what happened on the 2016 flight moving forward.
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