Brad Pitt’s 2016 seems to be ending on a pretty lousy note. Embroiled in an increasingly bitter custody battle with ex-wife Angelina Jolie, the actor accuses his former partner of denying him more generous visitation with their children — and of exposing confidential details about both their children and related legal proceedings.
Pause and take a deep breath, babes. This is quite an entanglement.
Are you set? Alright, let’s do this.
Pitt officially requested that all custody records be sealed after Jolie and her lawyer Laura Wasser filed an order referred to as the “October Stipulation.” Said stipulation includes information about their children’s therapy treatments, notes that Jolie and Pitt are attending group therapy with the children, and specifies that a child custody psychologist is deciding their visitation schedule. It also reveals that Pitt is submitting to drug and alcohol testing four times a month.
Pitt’s lawyer, Lance S. Spiegel, writes that Wasser and Jolie filed the October Stipulation as a response to Pitt’s desire for more visitation: “Based on Ms. Wasser’s email dated December 2, the unauthorized filing of the October Stipulation was caused by [Jolie’s] reaction to [Pitt’s attorney] having advised her counsel that [Pitt’s] time with the children should be increased.”
Spiegel moreover asserts that Jolie “previously refused to enter into a stipulation for such an order and has instead compromised the children’s privacy by disregarding a confidentiality agreement that was expressly designed to protect the minor children.”
Pitt and Spiegel claim that Jolie, in an effort to push her agenda, has made their children vulnerable by filing an order that she knew would become public.
“The minor children should be protected from embarrassment and stigma resulting from public access to information concerning their emotional status and their relationships with their parents,” writes Spiegel.
Pitt also submitted his own statement: