Behavior

Angelina Jolie has filed a new declaration in court, all part of Brad Pitt’s lawsuit – and Jolie’s countersuit – regarding her sale of Nouvel, her half of Chateau Miraval. The particular backstory is that, ahead of next year’s trial, Brad has continued to harass her through the courts, and his most recent “thing” is that he wants the court to order Angelina to produce her communications with her lawyers and her advisors from 2016. Specifically, the communications in the weeks after Brad assaulted and terrorized Angelina and their six kids on a plane, the weeks in which she took the kids, left him and filed for divorce. Angelina is fighting this discovery because of attorney-client privilege. Her new declaration is part of her request that Brad pay her legal fees just to handle this specific demand for her documents. Here’s more about the legal situation, and Jolie’s declaration:

Jolie demanded Pitt pay her $33,000 to cover her legal fees in defending the motion. “Jolie, through counsel, repeatedly asked Pitt to withdraw [the motion]. She even warned him numerous times that if the Court denied Pitt’s motion, Jolie would ask the Court to order Pitt to pay Jolie’s attorneys’ fees opposing the motion,” the court documents read. “Pitt still refused to withdraw it. Jolie thus requests that the Court order Pitt to reimburse her for the substantial attorneys’ fees she was forced to incur.”

In her filing, Jolie wrote, “The events leading to my need to separate from my ex-husband were emotionally difficult for me and our children. Upon filing for divorce, I left him control (and full residency) of our family homes in Los Angeles and at Miraval, without compensation, which I hoped would make him calmer in his dealings with me after a difficult and traumatic period.”

“To this day, the children and I have never again set foot on the property, given its connection to the painful events leading to the divorce,” the Maria star said. “Post-separation, I immediately began to look for a new house for me and our children, initially renting a home while looking for a more stable solution.”

“Because I wanted to ensure that Brad remained an important part of our children’s lives, I looked to buy a property near his home. At the time, my savings were tied up in Miraval, and I had not asked Brad for alimony or any other financial support. I was also very concerned about the health of our children, and so, for approximately two years, I declined work so that I could focus my attention on caring for our children and their recovery.”

“I was therefore not in a position to buy outright a home for our children in Los Angeles. I asked Brad to loan me the money to buy a home, which he agreed to do with interest,” Jolie detailed. In her declaration, Jolie explained that in early 2017, she had on-again, off-again talks with Pitt about him buying out her interest in Miraval.

“These discussions were always difficult for me, due to my deep emotional ties to our family home there and how our relationship ended. Miraval was one of the first major investments we made together, and it was a focal point of our family life. We were married there, I spent part of my pregnancy there and I brought our twin children home there from the hospital. To have such a sudden break from my home and memories has been hard, and it was especially difficult for the children to have their lives so disrupted,” Jolie told the court.
Jolie said things changed in 2021 after she brought up alleged domestic violence in their separate divorce case. She said Pitt then backed out of the deal. She said Pitt proposed she sign a non-disclosure agreement that would cover personal and business matters.

“There was no practical need for the NDA, as I had not pressed charges or spoken out about the events that led to our divorce. In fact, for the previous five years, I had never publicly said a word about his actions,” the entertainer added. “As the mother of our children, as well as an advocate for victims of violence around the world, I found his demand extremely painful.”
“Although I had always voluntarily kept Brad’s actions confidential for the health of our family and had no plans to ever publicly disclose the facts, I could not agree to this coercive demand,” the actress’ declaration continued. Jolie said she rejected the NDA and the deal fell apart. The actress claimed she told Pitt she was selling to Stoli. Pitt’s team previously disputed Jolie’s characterization of these events.

As Us first reported, Pitt has been demanding Jolie turn over a series of private messages he believes will help his case. He argued the documents he requested she produce “go directly to his core claims.” In her new motion, Jolie adamantly opposed his requests for certain emails she exchanged with advisors. Her lawyer asked the court to deny Pitt’s motion. He wrote, “The attorney-client privilege is a bedrock of American jurisprudence and a vital protection to clients in litigation. Yet [Pitt] moves to compel [Jolie] to produce 126 privileged communications where Jolie and several of her closest advisors are discussing her lawyers’ legal advice. The motion is a transparent attempt to invade Jolie’s privileged communications with her lawyers and should be denied for many reasons.”

[From Us Weekly]

While her declaration really doesn’t contain new information – if you’ve been following this case from the beginning – it’s good to see it all laid out. Brad is delusional, and this is still about punishing Angelina for leaving him. He wants to see her communications with her lawyer and her team, and she’s just reiterating exactly what happened and her decision-making throughout. This is particularly heartbreaking: “I left him control (and full residency) of our family homes in Los Angeles and at Miraval, without compensation, which I hoped would make him calmer in his dealings with me…” She was trying to placate the man who abused her and her children in the hope that they could settle everything privately for the sake of the children. Instead, Brad has been raging for nine years, smearing Angelina, bribing a judge, and suing Angelina over a completely legal winery sale.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.