In a recent legal filing, Angelina Jolie has accused her former spouse Brad Pitt of a “history of physical abuse” against her preceding their reported altercation in 2016. The 48-year-old actress’s legal team submitted documents on April 4, targeting the 60-year-old actor.
According to the papers acquired by various outlets, Jolie’s lawyers stated, “Pitt’s pattern of physical abuse toward Jolie began well before their September 2016 plane journey from France to Los Angeles. This flight marked the first instance where he also directed physical abuse toward their children,” prompting Jolie to leave him immediately, as per her legal representatives.
Additionally, Jolie’s attorneys asserted that Pitt sought to silence her with a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) after learning in 2021 about her submission of a sealed filing containing “emails, family testimonies, and other evidence.”
In a statement to Page Six, Jolie’s lawyer Paul Murphy claimed, “Mr. Pitt declined to buy Ms. Jolie’s silence by purchasing her interest in exchange for the NDA. By suing her after this refusal, Mr. Pitt brought into question the significance of that NDA and what he hoped to conceal: his mistreatment of Ms. Jolie and their family.”
Pitt has not publicly addressed Jolie’s recent legal action.
In October 2022, Jolie accused Pitt of physically abusing her and their children during a flight to California in 2016. According to court documents from the Los Angeles Superior Court, Jolie alleged that Pitt assaulted her in the plane’s restroom, where he purportedly “grabbed [her] head and shook her,” pushed her against the wall, and “punched the plane’s ceiling multiple times.”
One of their children intervened to defend Jolie, and Pitt allegedly “choked one child and struck another,” although the child’s identity was redacted in the documents. Jolie also accused Pitt of “pouring beer and red wine on the children.”
At that time, the FBI initiated an inquiry into the incident, but Pitt did not face criminal charges. He vehemently denied Jolie’s allegations, with a representative telling CNN in 2022 that her “story evolves with each retelling, including new, baseless accusations. Brad takes responsibility for his actions but not for what he did not do. These latest claims are entirely false.”
Pitt and Jolie were married from 2014 to 2019.
