Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie

The actress is risking everything to keep her family together CONTROVERSY

With a wide smile in place, Angelina Jolie looked happy and relaxed as she left a West Hollywood supermarket on Aug. 13, with three of her children in tow—zahara, 13, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 10—as well as a bodyguard who helped with the bags, a nice moment for the famous family, caught running errands at Whole Foods.

The mundane domestic scene was in marked contrast to reports the movie star’s custody battle with ex Brad Pitt has become even more heated, with the Maleficent actress ordered to remain in Los Angeles by the judge in the latest chapter of their divorce case, and that her six children must remain in California so they can be in close proximity to their father. If Jolie refuses, she risks losing physical custody of them.

According to court documents,

Pitt must be able to have access to the children on school days for four hours a day, every other day, and 12 hours a day on non-school days, every other day.

This latest move is reportedly the result of Pitt’s increasing fear that Jolie could take their children and move permanently away from the United States if she is awarded full custody. While the couple seem no closer to reaching any kind of agreement—the judge is waiting on a psychiatrist evaluation before making the final ruling—the pair are due to return to court to agree on other custody issues.

It is the latest episode in what is turning out to be a prolonged battle over visitation and child support, with each week seeming to bring a fresh twist to the case. The couple’s original arrangement, made when they first separated in September 2016, was temporary and voluntary. It agreed that Jolie had “physical custody of the minor children” but that Pitt would have weekly visits, supervised by a therapist. Four times a month, the actor, who is currently filming Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, had to submit to alcohol and drug testing while the family participated in individual and group therapy.

When Jolie filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences, allegations were made that Pitt had had a drunken altercation with eldest child Maddox on a private plane, with father and son involved in a physical and verbal altercation that led to an investigation by family services. Since then, other reports have suggested the actress’s actions were prompted by her concern over Pitt’s alleged issues with alcohol. “He dealt with his unhappiness by drinking heavily,” a source told Star magazine. “Brad’s demons got a hold of him.”

Although in October 2016 the couple made an arrangement to keep proceedings quiet, things came to a head when, a year into the split, it was reported that Pitt’s visitations had become increasingly sporadic. Relations between the exes broke down to such an extent that he was unable to spend any significant time with his children and by June this year, their clash had gone public.

In a series of rulings that have been disclosed, a judge stated that Jolie, 43, risked losing primary custody if she didn’t allow Pitt, 54, to spend time with the children and allow them to form a “healthy and strong relationship”; Jolie would not be allowed to intercept telephone calls and messages between Pitt and his children, and would have to provide a mobile phone number for each child so he could text or phone them without any restrictions or monitoring; and a strict timeline of visitations was also established for the following months while she was filming in the UK and he was splitting his time between there and the US. Details of how a child psychologist had to be present during Pitt’s UK visits were also revealed, and how Jolie was only allowed to call her children once a day when they were with their father in Los Angeles. At 16 years old, Maddox was allowed to make his own decisions about how much time he spent with Pitt. Significantly the court also ruled that the children were safe with their father.

Jolie’s camp quickly responded to the leak of court documents, saying it was “misleading and deplorable” and adding it was not in the best interests of the children to make the details public. “From the start, Angelina has been focused only on their health and needs,” a statement to WHO said, “which is why it was so important that this last court hearing be conducted privately.” Behind the scenes, Jolie was also said to be increasingly frustrated that she was unable to have her children with her full-time while she filmed Maleficent 2 in the UK.

Meanwhile Pitt was unhappy at the idea of them being so far away for months at a time when Los Angeles—where he also was filming—was their home base. In August it was reported that Jolie’s lawyer, Laura Wasser, was resigning with insiders saying she was concerned the case had become “too venomous.” A Jolie spokesperson denied Wasser had quit and explained the case was “entering a new phase,” presumably the cause for the addition of two new members to the legal team: Samantha Bley Dejean and the high-profile Joseph Mannis, who represented Kim Basinger in her famously combative 2002 divorce from Alec Baldwin.

Three days later, on Aug. 7, Jolie’s team filed papers saying, “As of present, [Pitt] has paid no meaningful child support since separation.” The actor’s legal counsel countered, saying Jolie’s filing was a “thinly-veiled effort to manipulate media coverage” and was “unnecessary.” In fact, added the statement, Pitt had loaned Jolie $US8 million to buy a house and had contributed $US1.3 million towards the children’s expenses. In response, Bley Dejean said, “A loan is not, however, child support and to represent it as such is misleading and inaccurate.”

At the same time, Jolie requested the judge issue the divorce decree be finalised before the end of the year. This request to split the issue of the couple’s marital status means they will be single despite not having settled custody and financial issues. It appears that Pitt’s hope— made more than a year ago to GQ— that his and Jolie’s focus that “everyone comes out stronger and better people” is further away than ever.

—a source tells WHO