Brangelina custody, divorce move to the next phase
He said/she said has cooled, but kids’ fate is still up in the air
Thursday marked the end of the temporary, three-week custody agreement hammered out by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, who are in the throes of a messy divorce. So now what? For the last several weeks, Jolie, 41, has had physical custody of their six children, while Pitt, 52, has been allowed to visit at least once, on Oct. 8, with a therapist present.
If they haven’t reached a new agreement by Thursday, or negotiated an extension of their current arrangement, “it’s free game,” says divorce lawyer Nancy Chemtob, founding partner at Chemtob Moss & Forman, who has represented high-profile clients including Star Jones and Tory Burch.
“There are two ways of deciding this — through a custody agreement and through an order of court. If neither of these exist, then it means Brad can, within reason, do what he wants,” she says. “He could pick the kids up, take them for dinner, or to his house and there would be no violation.”
The shocking divorce began with Jolie’s surprise filing and anonymous claims that Pitt verbally and physically abused one of his children on a private flight as the famous family traveled back to the U.S. from France. That’s when the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services got involved. Under California law, DCFS investigates every complaint report it receives.
In the past few weeks, though, the temperature “has gone down like eight or nine notches,” in terms of acrimony, says Rob Shuter, veteran publicist-turned-gossip-blogger at Naughtygossip.com. “The points have been scored,” he says, noting Jolie’s team has become less aggressive after public flubs, including Perez Hilton’s outrage at receiving a threat of legal action from her firm. (The gossip blogger turned around and publicized the attempted muzzling.) “I think she’s the one who ramped it up and she’s decided to take this down a notch,” Shuter says.
In her divorce filing, Jolie requested sole physical custody of Maddox, 15; Pax, 12; Zahara, 11; Shiloh, 10; and twins Vivienne and Knox, 8. “This decision was made for the health of the family,” Robert Offer, an attorney for Jolie, told USA TODAY at the time. A source close to Pitt later told USA TODAY claims of abuse “are greatly exaggerated or fabricated.”
Neither Jolie or Pitt has commented publicly since the split.
Pitt had 30 days from the time of Jolie’s Sept. 19 filing to legally respond but has not yet done so, which leads Chemtob to presume his lawyer, Lance Spiegel, obtained an extension. (Jolie is being represented by Offer and divorce lawyer Laura Wasser.)
“Due to the high-profile nature of this case, I would expect there was a responsible, procedural reason to explain his lack of re- sponse,” Chemtob says. “He may have been granted an extension from the court; it is common to be given an authorized extension of a certain amount of days.”
In the meantime, the actor voluntarily took a drug test within days of the Sept. 14 incident, and he and Jolie agreed to undergo individual counseling along with family therapy.
If the children’s visits with Pitt have gone well, “the typical progression is from monitored visits to unmonitored visits to more frequent unmonitored visits,” says Christina Riehl, senior staff attorney for the Children’s Advocacy Institute. Overnight visits follow, she says, leading to “a more equitable shared custody situation.” Riehl notes each case’s timeline is family-specific.
Without a new custody agreement in place, “both parents have equal custodial rights,” says lawyer Emily Pollock, a partner in the matrimonial and family law division of Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman, “but going about enforcing those rights could be difficult if the children are with Angelina and she does not agree to his requests for time.”
Pollock adds that if a judge has been assigned to the case, “we would advise (Pitt) to be careful about taking any action that would be viewed unfavorably by the court, which could jeopardize his prospects for future access.”
Since Jolie’s filing, the famous family has gone underground. Pitt canceled a premiere, and Jolie relocated with her brood, with paparazzi only getting a glimpse of the actress house-hunting in Malibu.
TMZ reported this week that the FBI visited Jolie on Tuesday, investigating the alleged plane incident, as issues in the air would fall under their jurisdiction. But if the immediate PR crisis has ebbed, there’s major cleanup left for the estranged couple.
While “elite people in the New York and L.A. press feel that (Jolie) played it too hard,” Shuter says, Pitt must now rehab his image as a father.
And thanks to those fiery first bombshells, curiosity lingers. “People are still curious about what happened. We really don’t know,” Shuter says. “While there are still so many questions, speculation and rumors and conspiracy theories thrive.”