If you thought your breakups were messed up, at least you’re not Brangelina. Ever since they split in September, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s custody battle is just getting nastier. It’s one thing to live in a world where Pitt and Jolie aren’t together anymore, but it’s crazy that it keeps getting more complicated.
In Pitt’s defense, he wanted to seal the court documents about their custody agreement, but a judge denied that request this week. Jolie also wants the divorce proceedings to be sealed and private, according to TMZ, but she went ahead and filed the papers publicly after Pitt allegedly asked that his visits with the kids be increased and that some be unmonitored. After multiple requests back and forth about when and where the visits would take place and how often, Jolie went ahead and stuck it to him, seemingly to prove that Pitt wasn’t complying with the temporary custody agreement by pushing for increased and unmonitored visits.
According to TMZ, Jolie wants the therapist that monitors Pitt’s visits with their six kids to make the call about when he can have unmonitored visits. Which is a pretty basic part of their custody agreement — she has full-time custody of the six kids, and Pitt has legal custody and can see them with a family therapist.
According to court records, Pitt said he wanted the custody negotiations to be made private to protect the kids. But Jolie (and the judge apparently) felt it was more about protecting his own image, since it was his actions at the heart of the divorce and the Department of Child and Family Services child abuse investigation. According to the documents, Pitt asked if he could see the kids more often after Thanksgiving — one additional session with the twins and another with the middle children. The oldest, Pax and Maddox, could opt out if they wanted (a disagreement between Maddox and Pitt prompted the allegations of child abuse in the first place). But if the eldest kids backed out, he wanted to get an extra visit with the younger kids.
Jolie’s lawyer said they wanted to check with the therapist first and get their expert advice about whether that was good for everyone. Pitt’s lawyers did not agree. “His access to the children is and has been far more limited than it should be, and is much less than any judge is likely to order on a going forward basis. There is no reason for Brad not to request court orders that are likely to include more access than I proposed yesterday,” his lawyer wrote.
See? This is the back and forth Pitt wants to make private. Pitt personallywrote in a statement to the court, “I am extremely concerned that if court records regarding custody are not sealed, information contained therein will cause irreparable damage to our children’s privacy rights.” Jolie called that request a “thinly veiled attempt to shield himself” and claimed it had nothing to do with the kids.
Ouch. Pitt might be better off just doing whatever Jolie wants, because she’s definitely not messing around.
Original by Karen Fratti @karenfratti
