Angelina Jolie’s lawyers allege Brad Pitt’s ‘physical abuse of Jolie’ started before 2016 plane incident

Angelina Jolie’s lawyers have alleged that her ex husband Brad Pitt was physically abusive towards her prior to a 2016 plane incident that culminated in the Maleficent star filing for divorce.

As part of the pair’s years-long legal dispute over their French winery, Château Miraval, Jolie’s legal team filed a motion on 4 April seeking to release communications that they say would prove Pitt, 60, would not let her sell her share of the winery to him unless she agreed to an “expansive” NDA.

In the court documents, filed to Los Angeles County Superior Court, the actor’s lawyers claim that Pitt had a history of physical abuse towards her before the 2016 incident on a private jet, from which she accused Pitt of being physically abusive towards their children.

The lawyers said in the filing: “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.”

The Independent has contacted Pitt’s representatives for comment.

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The exes bought the 1,300-acre Château Miraval estate in Provence in 2008 for around €20m and went into business with the Perrin family of winemakers five years later to produce Miraval’s signature rosé.

Both actors each owned a 50 per cent share in the property, as well as its wine-making enterprise. However, after the couple’s divorce, Jolie sold her stake in the property to a Russian oligarch in 2021, prompting a lawsuit from Pitt in which he accused Jolie of “systematic obstruction” of his management in the winery, and of selling her part of a stake in the vineyard without offering him the chance to buy it first.

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Since then, the pair have been embroiled in divorce proceedings concerning the business, child custody and disagreements over their various properties.

Jolie filed a cross-complaint in October 2022, which contained allegations that Pitt had “choked” one of their children onboard a private jet in 2016.

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The court filings, which were obtained by The New York Times, claimed that Pitt “choked one of the children and struck another in the face” and “grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her”. The filing also states that, at one point, “he poured beer on Jolie; at another, he poured beer and red wine on the children”.

Pitt vehemently denied the claims at the time, and he was never charged following an investigation into allegations of abuse on the 2016 flight.

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In the latest filing, lawyers for Jolie write that she “never pressed charges as she believed the best course was for Pitt to accept responsibility and help the family recover from the post-traumatic stress he caused”.

Jolie’s lawyers also alleged that the Fight Club actor tried to silence her with the NDA.

However, a June 2023 filing from Pitt’s legal team claims Jolie was the one who suggested an “even broader non-disparagement clause” and that Pitt’s team presented a “narrower” one intended to “protect” their wine business.

Pitt and Jolie, who started dating in 2004, married in 2014 and split in 2016, share six children: Maddox, 22, Pax, 20, Zahara, 19, Shiloh, 17, and 15-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox.