Angelina Jolie’s legal team claim ex-husband Brad Pitt was physically abusive to her before their infamous 2016 row on a plane, according to reports.
In newly-filed legal documents, attorneys for Jolie, 48, alleged Pitt had a history of being aggressive.
Their motion in Los Angeles County Superior Court is linked to the former Hollywood couple’s battle over their French winery.
In 2022, Jolie first claimed 60-year-old Pitt was verbally and physically abusive towards her and their children during a flight from Nice, France, to Los Angeles on September 14, 2016.
Pitt has denied all allegations of physical abuse.
At the time his lawyer, Anne Kiley, said the Oscar-winning actor had been on the receiving end of “every type of personal attack and misrepresentation”.
Pitt was not charged amid an FBI probe into the incident.
The Standard approached representatives for Pitt and Jolie, also an Academy Award winner, after MailOnline first reported the new legal battle. CNN also obtained the court documents.
They quote lawyers for The Lara Croft: Tomb Raider actress saying in the filing on Thursday: “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.”
A source close to Jolie alleged Pitt declined to enter into counselling for domestic violence and sought partial custody of their six children: Maddox, 22, Pax, 20, Zahara, 19, Shiloh, 17, and twins Vivienne and Knox, 15.
The attorneys claimed: “Pitt never came to this understanding and not only sought 50-50 custodial time - including with children with whom he had not had a stable relationship in years - but also sought sole custody if the children did not sufficiently bond with him.”
MailOnline added the lawyers allege “despite this distressing request, Jolie still did not seek sole custody” of the children.
It added: “Instead she advocated that the children’s wishes and needs be prioritised, based in part on what the children felt they could do, and for a custody plan formulated in the children’s best interest to heal.”
The ongoing dispute between the couple - who famously fell in love on the set of their 2005 movie Mr & Mrs Smith - centres around the sale of their stakes in Chateau Miraval SA, a French company comprising a home and vineyard in the south of France, which they purchased in 2008.
Pitt has previously accused Jolie of orchestrating a “hostile” takeover of the wine business that he had “carefully built” and forced him into partnership with “a stranger with poisonous associations and intentions” – Russian oligarch Yuri Shefler.
The Miraval estate is located in the village of Correns in south-eastern France, and was bought by the actors for around 25 million Euros (£21,462,475).
In a statement, Jolie’s lawyer Paul Murphy told US media that the information released in Thursday’s filing is revealing of why the Fight Club actor wanted Jolie to sign a non-disclosure agreement amid their divorce.
He told CNN: “Mr Pitt refused to purchase Ms Jolie’s interest when she would not be silenced by his NDA.
“By refusing to buy her interest but then suing her, Mr. Pitt put directly at issue why that NDA was so important to him and what he hoped it would bury: his abuse of Ms Jolie and their family.
“After eight months of delays, this motion asks the Court to force Mr. Pitt to finally produce that evidence.”
