BITTER BATTLE
Brad Pitt is desperate for Angelina Jolie to let him spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with their children
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s divorce gets even uglier as she slaps him with a new set of demands.
It’s an adventure high school juniors and their parents go through each year: college visits. The first week of November, Maddox Jolie-pitt, 17, and mom Angelina Jolie were among them. While on an official U.N. trip to Seoul, South Korea, Angie made time to take her eldest on a college tour in the East Asian country. Son Pax, nearly 15, joined them. But the boys’ father, Brad Pitt, wasn’t invited.
And now Brad fears he’ll be left out again — this time, during the holidays. With their custody war over Maddox, Pax, Zahara, 13, Shiloh, 12, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 10, still unresolved — Angelina, 43, wants sole custody, while Brad, 54, wants joint — tensions remain high, especially as the season of celebration nears. “Angelina likes to hold all the cards, but Brad is intent on having the kids with him for Thanksgiving as well as his birthday [on Dec. 18] and again at Christmas,” says a source. “They are at complete loggerheads.”
Angelina has always pre- ferred to travel with the children during the holidays. Last year, the actress took them to NYC in December, while their final Christmas as a family of eight was spent in Thailand. If she gets her way again in 2018, it could be déjà vu for Brad, who made headlines in 2016 when he spent a lonely Thanksgiving holed up in a Turks and Caicos villa after Angie refused to let him see the kids at home in LA. “It’s sad to see the children caught in the middle,” says the source. “They hate the animosity that’s grown.”
TUG-OF-WAR
Recent court filings show there’s still a lot more to fight over, more than two years after their split. The former couple have asked a judge to give them until June to hash out all of the details of their divorce, including dividing their property. (Angie wants half of Brad’s fortune and oth- er assets, which could total $200 million, says a second source.) And on Dec. 4, they begin a custody trial just weeks after a psychologist started evaluating the children to help determine a verdict. “Angie’s still fighting Brad on every front,” says an insider. “They are far from on good terms.”
Brad may be feeling confident. Over the summer, he was granted more court-ordered visitation, while Angie was warned she could lose custody for not facilitating a relationship between her ex and the kids. Still, Angie is determined to get her way — and to stick it to Brad over the holidays. “Angelina knows how much he loves watching them unwrap gifts and helping them put toys together,” says the insider. “She really is trying to do whatever she can to limit these family memories for Brad. It’s cruel, but he isn’t letting her get away with it.”