May brought big news for those who have been following the nearly five-year-long saga of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s high-profile divorce proceedings. Last month, the actor was granted joint custody of the children he shares with his ex-wife and fellow actor Angelina Jolie, as per TMZ.
Now, new court documents show three of the pair’s children alledgedly wanted to testify against Brad Pitt.
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As many fans know, Angelina and ex-husband Brad Pitt share six children together:
19-year-old Maddox, 17-year-old Pax, 16-year-old Zahara, 14-year-old Shiloh, and 12-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox.
Maddox is no longer considered a minor and therefore not involved in the custody battle.
At the time of the pair’s 2016 divorce, Angelina’s decision to file was reportedly because she was “extremely upset” with Brad’s parenting style.
For a while, Brad was estranged from all his kids until he ultimately landed supervised visitation rights.
Now, Brad is entitled to joint custody in a new court ruling announced at the end of May.
Now, *Us Weekly* is sharing recently obtained documents from December that claim three of the pair’s children were willing to testify against their father.
“The children whose custody is at issue are old enough to understand what is going on,” the document obtained by Us Weekly reads. “The trial is necessarily going to impact them emotionally. Three of the children have asked to testify.”
The document continued:
“To make any of the children endure what may be a futile and void proceeding is beyond unjustified. It is cruel.”
The publication reports that the document was filed as part of Angelin’s ongoing attempt to have Judge John Ouderkerk removed from the case because of his alleged connections to Brad’s legal team.
The actress’ lawyers argued that the children shouldn’t have even been put in the position to want to testify because the judge should have been disqualified.
Angelina has been trying to have Judge Ouderkerk removed from their court proceedings since last year.
In August of 2020, Angelina claimed that the judge failed to disclose “ongoing business and professional relationships” with her ex-husband’s lawyers.
Two months later, the actress’s request was denied and the judge remained on the case.
She tried again earlier this year, filing additional documents alleging that the judge refused to hear evidence she believed was pertinent to the case, including her children’s testimonies
“Judge Ouderkirk denied Ms. Jolie a fair trial, improperly excluding her evidence relevant to the children’s health, safety, and welfare, evidence critical to making her case,” the documents claimed .
The article goes on to describe 19-year-old son Maddox’s testimony against his father.
“It wasn’t very flattering toward Brad,” a source told the publication of the teen’s testimony.
“He doesn’t use Pitt as his last name on documents that aren’t legal and instead uses Jolie.”
“Maddox wants to legally change his last name to Jolie, which Angelina has said she doesn’t support.”
According to court records, a hearing is scheduled for July 9.
Us Weekly reports that Angelina wants to use the appeal to “demonstrate clear, reversible, prejudicial legal error” on the part of Judge Ouderkirk.
An appeal will be heard by a three-justice panel and attorneys for both actors will be given time to present their arguments.
This story is ongoing.
h/t: Us Weekly
