This week marks the tenth anniversary of Brad Pitt violently and drunkenly terrorizing his wife and six children on a private plane. It’s also the tenth anniversary of Angelina Jolie dumping Brad following the flight, when she immediately took the children to safety and filed for divorce. Brad never forgave her for that, and he’s spent the past ten years trying to punish her for leaving. He slow-walked their divorce for years, and he has spent over four years suing Angelina over her legal sale of her half of Chateau Miraval. But there’s good news for Angelina: all six kids are now legal adults, they’ve all graduated from high school and she’s free and clear to sell her LA home and travel the world. Meanwhile, Brad recently let the cat out of the bag about the fact that he hasn’t been sober for years, which made everyone sit up and say “oh, that’s why his kids still hate his guts and why they’re dropping his surname.” To mark the tenth anniversary of all of this, People Magazine had a big exclusive… with not a lot of new info, but sure. Some highlights:

The 2016 incident: Jolie, now 51, filed for divorce from Pitt, citing irreconcilable differences less than a week after the plane ride. Days after the divorce news, sources confirmed that Pitt was under investigation on suspicion of child abuse after he allegedly got “verbally abusive” and “physical” with one of his kids on the couple’s private plane while their other kids were present. The FBI later cleared the F1 star, while the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services concluded its investigation with no findings of abuse. Jolie declined to press charges at the time.

Pitt sources say there were problems before the plane: Reflecting on the high-profile relationship 10 years later, “there’s a much greater willingness by probably everybody that things were not so great” behind the scenes, says a source close to Pitt. “They were not necessarily as good as they looked to people on the outside. There were a lot of issues that were festering for many years.”

Jolie sources say she’s made the choice not to blast Pitt: “There has never been any real understanding of what happened that caused her to file for divorce, or the years that followed,” says a Jolie source. “For a decade she has kept silent, so not to disparage the father of her children. She has kept a dignified silence even while she was being attacked with misinformation.”

The kids’ name-changes: “This is the result of a prolonged campaign of alienation of children against their parent,” a source close to Pitt, 62, told PEOPLE in July. “It’s an incredibly sad reality, but it’s not surprising after years of one parent weaponizing the children against the other one with no regard for the consequence.” The Jolie insider told PEOPLE in July, “If people knew the whole truth, they would have more sympathy for the children and respect them. The fact they aren’t speaking ill or sharing things publicly only shows their decency.”

Brad doesn’t talk to his kids: “There’s very little communication right now” between Pitt and his children, says a source close to the actor. “It’s a tragedy.”

Angelina has been through the wringer: The Jolie source calls the last 10 years “a very difficult and painful decade for her.” The source adds: “She’s been through a lot and is focused on her health and recovery. I’m sure she’s hoping this next chapter will be easier…. She now will be able to leave L.A. and work on her international humanitarian work and foundation in Cambodia.”

Brad & Ines de Ramon: Over the past four years, Pitt has also found romance with jewelry designer girlfriend Ines de Ramon. Pitt and de Ramon, 33, who have been linked since November 2022, are “really good for each other,” says the Pitt source. “His personal life with Ines is something that’s provided him great comfort.”

Brad’s relapse: Pitt revealed in August he had battled a brief suicidal period due to “family stuff,” and also shared he ended his sobriety from alcohol after seven years, saying he now drinks “in a more restrained manner.” “It’s obviously a very personal decision,” the Pitt source tells PEOPLE. “Experts said that each person evaluates it individually to figure out what’s best for themselves.”

Angelina’s doing well: “She has more flexibility to travel and spend time in different places,” a second Jolie source tells PEOPLE. She’s excited about having that freedom and figuring out what she wants this next phase of her life to look like.” Jolie has “been looking forward to this for a while. For years, so much of her life was centered in Los Angeles,” the source adds. “She’s doing really well. She feels very inspired creatively and loves having a lot going on. For a long time, her focus was very much on the kids and she wasn’t working much. Now that they’re older and have their own lives, she has more time to focus on work again.”

Angelina is forgiving: Despite the contentious split, the first Jolie source adds, the actress “is forgiving. She wishes him health and happiness. She just wants to be left alone.”

[From People]

I agree that Angelina just wants to be left alone at this point. She doesn’t want to deal with Brad’s histrionics and nuisance lawsuits and booze anymore. She wants to be free and far away from all of his BS. I keep going back to Brad’s recent Esquire interview, the one where he admitted that he hasn’t been sober in years. That was a bittersweet gift to Angelina, really. Pitt exposed his own inability to stay sober, and he ended up driving the conversation back to the beginning, the plane, and what he did to Angelina and the kids. And why he tried to get sober in the first place. To this day, I believe that Brad was blackout drunk on the plane. I think that would explain so much of his behavior since then – he literally does not remember what he did to Angelina and the kids.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.