Over the past several days, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (who split up nearly two years ago) have taken their ongoing divorce to the court of public opinion, as both TMZ and more traditional gossip publications like People and Us Weekly have been receiving/publishing statement after statement (and presumably leak after leak) from the lawyers for both parties.
What it boils down to is a war of words—or, more specifically, legal briefs. Early this week Angelina filed court documents claiming Brad hasn’t been paying her “meaningful child support.” Then Brad filed court documents of his own claiming that he gave her like $9 million for the kids and a house, adding that Jolie’s documents were “a thinly-veiled effort to manipulate media coverage.” And then, late Wednesday afternoon, Angelina’s team released a statement to People saying, in part:
“[Jolie’s court filing] was both legally appropriate and factually accurate in all respects… What has been filed by Brad’s side today is a blatant attempt to obfuscate the truth and distract from the fact that he has not fully met his legal obligations to support the children.”
Note that Wednesday evening’s statement was prepared by attorney Samantha Bley DeJean, and not Laura Wasser, the iconic celebrity divorce lawyer whom TMZ claims has quit Angie’s case because it’s too “hostile.” If that’s true, I feel her! This is a mess.