Earlier this week, court documents in Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s custody case were made available to the media and as I wrote yesterday, most of the media focus was on the details that were unfavourable to Angelina while lightly skipping over the information about how Brad, after a year and a half, is still required to have a supervisor present when he spends time with his children. Also…how did these court documents get out there? Angelina’s spokesperson issued a statement about the situation:
“This misleading leak is not in the best interests of the children. From the start, Angelina has been focused only on their health and needs, which is why it was so important that this last court hearing be conducted privately. It’s deplorable that someone, for their own selfish reasons, leaked selective portions of the confidential and sealed court record to create an inaccurate and unfair picture of what is really happening.”
Both Angelina and Brad are Hollywood veterans. They are well aware of how leaks work. They understand how to leak too. The fact that this leak benefited him, publicly, much more than it benefitted her… well… you know.
However, CNN covered the story yesterday and in their report, the documents were not sealed. Sure. What we’re dealing with here, though, is a leak and seal (or unseal) situation. How did it go down then? Let’s back it up.
In January 2017, after months of publicly dragging each other, Brad and Angelina confirmed that they had agreed to turn the privacy settings back on. Per PEOPLE at the time:
According to the statement obtained by PEOPLE, “The parties and their counsel have signed agreements to preserve the privacy rights of their children and family by keeping all court documents confidential and engaging a private judge to make any necessary legal decisions and to facilitate the expeditious resolution of any remaining issues.”
It concludes: “The parents are committed to act as a united front to effectuate recovery and reunification.”
For the past several weeks, Pitt, 53, and Jolie, 41, had been trading harsh accusations in filings in Los Angeles Superior Court, but recently both agreed to seal sensitive records relating to their six children.
From that point on, then, it was thought that documents related to the Jolie-Pitt custody and divorce case would remain confidential. If these recent court documents were not sealed and therefore accessible, how would the media have been tipped off to go looking for them? And…again…who does that benefit?
PEOPLE posted an “exclusive” story yesterday about how Brad is “doing great and has his energy back” with details about when the kids spend the night at his place and how he’s been seen in England, riding a bike, near where Angelina and the children are staying. Well that’s convenient. And now we’re not talking anymore about why Brad hasn’t been seen with his children since he and Angelina announced their divorce. The conversation now is about who to blame for that.
“He is a great dad and always loved being with his kids,” the (PEOPLE) source says of Pitt. “He doesn’t talk badly about Angie, but he feels it’s her fault that the kids don’t want to spend more time with him.”
Well done, source. Putting “he doesn’t talk badly about Angie” and the words “her fault” in the same sentence is an excellent way to not talk badly about someone.
What’s Angelina’s next move?
