Angelina Jolie’s latest strike against Brad Pitt in their ongoing custody battle is to accuse her ex-husband of trying to use his movie star status to gain special treatment in the California courts.
The accusation from Jolie’s legal team comes in court papers filed Monday in the California Supreme Court and obtained by Page Six.
Pitt’s legal team responded in an interview with Page Six, saying that Jolie has been “unnecessarily” prolonging the custody fight because a judge ruled against her and said Pitt should get 50/50 custody of their five minor children, ages 13 to 17.
Jolie’s allegations against Pitt come in response to a petition he filed last month, seeking to overturn an appellate court’s decision to dismiss Judge John Ouderkirk, who had been overseeing their contentious custody fight over the past five years. Jolie’s lawyers said the Supreme Court should reject Pitt’s effort to cast aside the ruling by the 2nd District Court of Appeal.
“This sort of gamesmanship, a last-ditch effort by a celebrity litigant seeking special treatment, is not what this Court’s limited review resources are for,” Jolie’s lawyers said. “There is nothing to see or review here. There is no issue meeting this Court’s rigorous standards for, or worthy of, review.”
The appellate court ruled in July that Judge John Ouderkirk should be disqualified after he delivered Pitt, 57, a victory in the couple’s custody fight. Ouderkirk, a private judge hired by both parties at the start of the case, had tentatively granted Pitt joint custody of the couple’s five minor children. Pitt previously had visitation.
Ouderkirk, who also performed the couple’s 2014 wedding ceremony at their Château Miraval French estate, also denied Jolie’s request to have three of their children testify in their custody trial and to present evidence of domestic violence.
Jolie challenged Ouderkirk’s neutrality, based on his failure to disclose prior business ties to Pitt’s attorneys. The appellate court agreed that Ouderkirk should be dismissed because of his perceived bias in favor of Pitt.
The review requested by Pitt in the Supreme Court argued that Ouderkirk’s failure to disclose the business ties was nothing more than “a minor and inadvertent administrative error.”
Pitt’s attorney, Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., accused Jolie of being the party resorting to “gamesmanship.” He also alleged she was unnecessarily dragging out the case, simply because a qualified judge she had long approved of wouldn’t rule in her favor.
In an interview with Page Six, Boutrous said the appellate court’s ruling “will reward parties who are losing child custody cases, and condone their gamesmanship, by allowing them to wait and see about the likely direction of the case before seeking the disqualification of the judge.”
Boutros furthermore said the appellate court ruling “will cause irreparable harm to both the children and families involved in this case, and other families in other cases, by unnecessarily prolonging the resolution of these disputes in an already overburdened court system.”
Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt in September 2016, but the one-time Hollywood super couple remain locked in contentious and costly legal fight over their children. They are parents to six, but their oldest son, Maddox, who is 20, is not subject to the custody ruling.
Family law experts have generally questioned whether Jolie and Pitt’s protracted divorce fight is in the best interests of their children, who also include Pax, 17, Zahara, 16, Shiloh, 14, and 13-year-old twins, Knox and Vivienne. Experts interviewed by this news organization note that the children are all now teenagers who are expected to have greater control than young children over which parent they live with and how they spend their time, whether it’s with peers or in activities.
Experts also said it’s generally “traumatic” for children of all ages to be called into court and asked to testify. They said Ouderkirk likely based his custody ruling on testimony from therapists who interviewed the children and others involved in their day-to-day lives.
In a recent interview with The Guardian, Jolie suggested that she and her children suffered trauma at the hands of Pitt. While the actor and director said she was legally prevented from directly commenting on the case, she responded affirmatively to a reporter’s question about whether she feared for the safety of her children while married to Pitt.
“Yes, for my family. My whole family,” Jolie said.
Jolie, who also is a UN special envoy for refugee rights, put her custody fight in broader, humanitarian terms. She indicated to The Guardian that her personal experience with Pitt — over a decade-long relationship and two-year marriage — made her realize the importance of children’s rights, which is why she co-authored a new book for children, “Know Your Rights and Claim Them: A Guide for Youth.”
In addition, Jolie confirmed to The Guardian that she was alluding to the domestic violence allegations she made against Pitt when she said she became concerned that her children’s rights were not being honored.
The “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” actor always has denied being physically abusive to his children, though he admitted in interviews that he had alcohol and anger management problems that contributed to his divorce. He said he addressed these issues in recovery.
The FBI and child welfare officials also cleared Pitt of wrongdoing over a well-publicized confrontation that reportedly spurred Jolie to file for divorce. The confrontation involved Pitt and Maddox, and it occurred during a private flight carrying Jolie, Pitt and their children from France to Los Angeles. Pitt was accused of being verbally and physically abusive towards Maddox during the flight.
During that Guardian interview, Jolie further attempted to cast Pitt in a bad light by claiming that he continued to work with Harvey Weinstein, even after she told him that the disgraced producer had sexually harassed her when she worked with him on 1998 film “Playing by Heart.”
Jolie said she turned down a film role because Weinstein was involved, so it “was hard for me” when Pitt continued to work on projects on which he was involved, including the 2012 film “Killing Them Softly.” “We fought about it. Of course it hurt,” Jolie said.
Meanwhile, Jolie’s latest legal salvo comes as Pitt has launched legal action against her in Luxembourg to stop her selling her shares of their $164 million Château Miraval estate, Page Six also reported. Pitt has accused Jolie of trying sell off her 50 percent stake in the Provencal estate without giving Pitt the first option to buy her out. The estate produces a highly rated rosé wine that is sold at many supermarkets for around $20 per bottle.
