Ever since Angelina Jolie fled the private plane with all six children, abandoned Brad Pitt and filed for divorce in 2016, Pitt’s people have been running to several media outlets to push nasty narratives about Angelina and positive narratives about Brad. His favorite outlets include (and this is just my opinion): People Magazine (of course), Us Weekly, Page Six and the Daily Mirror. It was widely reported that when Angelina left him, Brad hired a huge team of lawyers, crisis managers and publicists to help him through the PR catastrophe and smear his ex. They’ve done a good job, especially when it comes to the lack of coverage around the Make It Right NOLA fiasco and what he actually did to his wife and children on that plane.

Anyway, Page Six has an exhaustive piece on the renewed conflict between Angelina and Brad, all because Pitt and his lawyers were lying about the private judge on their divorce case. I generally believe that Pitt’s team wanted this to be yet another hit piece on Angelina, but Page Six ended up making them both sound like miserable people. Some highlights:

“Sources” say Angelina doesn’t actually want the divorce? “The longer she does this, the more damage she does to the kids,” one acquaintance told The Post. “This is a game she’s playing. She still has the kids for more of the time than he does and she’s trying to maintain that as long as possible.” Sources familiar with the family say that, while maintaining control of the children is paramount to Jolie, she has love-hate feelings for Pitt. “On some level she doesn’t want this [the divorce] to end,” said one source. “She’s trying to hold on.”

On Judge Ouderkirk: Insiders say there are very few private LA judges working for high-net-worth clients and it’s a no-brainer that Judge John W. Ouderkirk would have other clients repped by Pitt’s counsel. Team Pitt hit back with court documents showing that Ouderkirk, who officiated the couple’s wedding in 2014, had disclosed those dealings and that Jolie was aware of them. Ouderkirk said he had no bias in the case and refused to step down. Now a court will decide whether to remove him. “The judge excoriated her legal team’s hail-Mary attempt to delay the process again,” said an attorney close to the matter. [Note: the “hail-Mary” talking point was actually from Pitt’s lawyer, not the judge.]

Angelina is only focused on what’s best for her kids. Sources say that despite the way things may look to the public, “She’s the one who filed for divorce,” said one person close to Jolie. “There is no one more than her that wants it to be done.” Jolie sources told The Post that the kids still require therapy after the private-jet flight in 2016. The kids range in age from 19-year-old Maddox, who, a source said, now has “no real relationship” with his father.

There are still limits on Brad’s custody: “Brad does spend time with the kids but there are still limits and that’s the frustrating part,” a source with knowledge of the situation said. “In California, custody is [typically] 50-50 . . . But in reality, Brad doesn’t have 50 percent custody.”

Angelina’s latest legal filings make Brad look better, when he is in fact awful: “I’m not saying she’s perfect, or the sanest person around,” said a source who worked with Pitt and Jolie when they were together. “But he wore the pants in that relationship . . . He’s much tougher than he lets on. That boyish, good guy image is just an image.”

[From Page Six]

After that, Page Six begins to detail some of Pitt’s recent catastrophes, like the legal mess with lighting designer Odile Soudant, who worked on the Chateau Miraval in France and is “still embroiled in lawsuits with Pitt more than 10 years after he asked her to create a multimillion-dollar design.” He bankrupted her when he didn’t pay her for her work, AND he took credit for her design and she’s already been awarded $750K in damages. Page Six also notes that there’s another hearing in New Orleans about the decrepit and unliveable Make It Right homes, but that so far, Brad has been able to “duck and drag out” the lawsuits brought by homeowners.

Anyway, of course Angelina wants to be divorced. Would you want to be married to him? I mean, realistically? No. Their divorce was already bifurcated, so all they’re fighting over now is the money, the kids and the judge. And I just don’t see how the judge can avoid being kicked off the case, so yeah, of course it’s going to drag on a bit further. Interesting about how the kids are still in therapy because of Brad’s actions too.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.