In September 2016, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt went from being happily married to beginning a bitter divorce.
The inciting incident behind their split was a horrible event during a family flight.
Though Angelina reported Brad to the FBI for child-abuse the next day, his defenders have long demanded evidence.
Now, in court documents filed during this extended and painful divorce, Angelina is offering exactly that.
It has been widely reported that Angelina Jolie filed court papers on March 12.
In those documents, Angelina was willing to “offer proof and support” of “testimony regarding domestic violence.”
She did not directly address her ex, Brad Pitt, as the perpetrator in the filing.
Angelina expressed that evidence could be offered on the witness stand.
She was willing to offer “testimony of minor children” in those documents.
That means that, potentially, any of or all six of the Jolie-Pitt children could testify.
The children include Maddox, 19, Pax, 17, Zahara, 16, Shiloh, 14, and Knox and Vivienne, 12-year-old twins.
Though Maddox is currently an adult, he was not at the time of his parents’ divorce.
And he reportedly played a pivotal, if involuntary, role in the final moments of their marriage.
Pieced together from reports and Angelina’s criminal complaint filed with the FBI, there was an “incident” on the flight in September 2016.
It apparently involved Brad and Maddox, with Maddox being the victim of alleged child abuse.
While no legal action was taken after an investigation, that of course is all too common in child-abuse cases.
Presumably, the testimony would come in the form of the children describing what happened between Brad and Maddox.
(Just a reminder: testimony is evidence; I realize that some people think that “evidence” is always fingerprints/etc)
Traumatic events often remain fixed in children’s memories, even when the victim is one of their siblings and not themselves.
An alleged “inside source” close to Brad Pitt reached out to In Touch Weekly to attempt some preemptive damage control.
“When they were first divorced in the fall of 2016… she made similar allegations (about what happened on their plane ride back to the U.S.),” the source recalled.
The insider continued: “which were reported to the authorities and thoroughly investigated before no action was taken.”
Of course, this source claims that Angelina is not trying to protect her children at all.
Rather, the insider close to Brad claims that Angelina is merely aiming to “hurt” Brad.
When reading reports from named or unnamed sources, it is often wise to … well, consider the source.
As was noted earlier, “no action taken” is less of an exculpatory revelation about someone accused of abuse and more of an indictment of our justice system.
Additionally, some of Brad’s former fans have put a lot of thought into the divorce and the allegations.
Even without hearing the testimony of any of the children, many can only reach one conclusion.
Fans have asked themselves simple questions.
For example, why would Angelina go from happy wife two years into her marriage to ex over the course of a plane flight.
Another is why she would put herself in a position to be blasted as the “villain” of the divorce.
The only answer that makes sense is that she would do so to protect her children.
Of course, the pro-Brad camp often insinuates or outright accuses Angelina of making up “lies” to “hurt” Brad.
But why, if not the incident with Brad and Maddox, would Angelina resent her ex enough to “frame” him or even divorce him?
On top of that comes the other piece of often-ignored information.
Reportedly, Maddox doesn’t seem to want to have anything to do with Brad.
Fans can only conclude that either he and Angelina entered a 5-year conspiracy to frame their family member, or Maddox has good reason to resent and avoid his dad.
Will Maddox or any of the other children testify?
They’re certainly all old enough to if it comes to that.
It’s just a shame that they might have to. Victims have to jump through too many hoops to be believed.