EXPLOSIVE SHOWDOWN IN COURT!
HEADED FOR ANOTHER BREAKDOWN? ANGELINA JOLIE UNRAVELS AS SHE BATTLES BRAD PITT FOR CUSTODY OF THEIR KIDS
So little has changed. Four years ago, Angelina Jolie blindsided Brad Pitt with divorce papers after two years of marriage and more than 11 years together. Though a judge declared them legally single in 2019 via what’s known as a bifurcated divorce, they’re still not even close to being done with their divorce: They’re at odds over a financial settlement, and after all this time remain at loggerheads over custody of their minor children. “If anyone thinks Brad and Angie are on their way to becoming amicable exes,” says a source, “well, they’re sorely mistaken.”
Now the pair are going to trial. Brad and Angelina are facing off in front of a private judge for about two weeks starting Oct. 5 in an attempt to settle their custody dispute once and for all. Insiders confirm Angelina, 45, is still demanding a permanent arrangement that will give her full custody of Pax, 16, Zahara, 15, Shiloh, 14 and twins Knox and Vivienne, 12 (at 19, Maddox can make up his own mind) and wants the right to move the kids out of LA, while Brad, 56, is determined to permanently secure joint custody and put an end
to the drama and alienation once and for all. “Angie has been torturing Brad for four years not only because she wants the kids, but because she just doesn’t want to see him happy,” says the source. “He’s gotten sober and is a changed man, but she doesn’t care and just wants to see him suffer.”
ANGELINA BECOMES UNHINGED
If Brad wins, there’s no telling what might happen. “Angie is losing her mind and will really go over the edge if he gets permanent joint custody of the kids, which is entirely possible because he has a list of witnesses who will say he’s changed,” says the source. Ahead of the trial, Brad submitted a list of 19 witnesses who will testify on his behalf (although five of those witnesses are also scheduled to testify for Angelina, as well). Psychologists, family therapists, parenting coordinators and even one of his ex’s old co-stars — Jillian Armenante, 52, who appeared with Angelina in 1999’s Girl, Interrupted and 2007’s A Mighty Heart — will tell all. “Brad’s also got domestic violence experts, bodyguards and security people who will vouch for his character and actions around the children,” says the source.
Expert testimony could make or break the case. “Therapists and psychologists could say Angie is a great parent or that she’s irrational and unstable. There’s certainly a history of instability there,” says the source, pointing to some of the Oscar-winning actress’ own bombshell admissions. Not long before her 2000 wedding to second husband Billy Bob Thornton, Angie told Larry King in 2001 she “ended up going crazy” because she couldn’t find Billy Bob, explaining that she was so “hysterical” and mentally unhinged that she was admitted to the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and placed on a three-day psychiatric hold.
She’s also publicly discussed plans to kill herself — or hire someone to do it for her. She wanted to use a knife and sleeping pills to end her life, but “I didn’t know if I could pull the final thing across my wrists,” she told Rolling Stone in 2001, and she realized she might not have enough pills for an overdose. “This is going to sound so insane, but there was a time when I realized I was going to have to hire somebody to kill me.” She even met with a man she was told could get it done, but “he made me think