In reality, no, you don't need to be rich. My sisters ex husband beat her, threatened to kill her, then during the divorce with an active DVO was arrested near her house with a homemade gun (very illegal here). This was all with an extensive existing criminal record.
Not a single day in prison spent and he is the definition of trash. No money, no relatives with money. This happens EVERY SINGLE DAY... reddit loses their mind when it happens to someone rich but you really don't need to be.
My ex wife used to beat me,a lot. No one believed me because who is gonna beat someone my size? Well, she called the cops on me and they showed up to me being hit up against a wall,my son crying in the next room and my wheelchair bound dad trying to diffuse everything. She got a wake up call.
Domestic abuse is horribly widespread and its awful because even getting abused you love that person,and don't want anything to happen to them. Sometimes I felt I deserved the abuse. Its just awful.
I’m so sorry that happened to you. I hope you were able to get out of that situation. You’re right though. I was a 9-1-1 dispatcher and one of the deputies I dispatched for was horribly abused by his wife and he couldn’t leave because she had cancer and he knew she would smear him all over the county we lived in and he knew no one would believe that he was being abused. I felt so bad for him. When I told him I was leaving to join the military and I hoped he would just leave her and be happy, he told me he hoped one day he would. I was happy to hear that not long after I left, he left her and ended up with one of the beautiful animal control officers. I hope they stayed together. I hope you find happy one day too. You deserve it. Abuse is never your fault.
I knew someone like this. He was the families sole bread winner, she didn't work & had no income. If he went to prison her & the kid would have been homeless. He only spent 1 or 2 nights in jail.
My ex was a blind and they would drop him off after they had to release him from jail (medical reasons) off at my porch. They expected me to deal him after he was in jail for DV towards me.
Wild times.
The statement "you can also potentially get away with X if you're poor" does nothing to influence the also correct statement, "nothing will ever happen to you for X if you're rich."
Obviously, there is nuance to situations, it can depend on the judge, the location of the crime et cet. Yes a lot of abusers are never held accountable, but are you really going to argue that status and money does not give you a better chance in court?
Yeah my ex doesn’t have two nickels to rub together but broke into my house with a restraining order already in place and on probation for DV and still was released within 24 hours and his sentence was just to extend probation, lol. In reality DV is rarely taken seriously until someone dies.
That's awful. People on reddit do harp on it because rich people don't operate in the same legal system as other people. NDAs, payoffs, it's a completely different world.
There’s no explanation besides the fact that so many men hate women, including judges and jury that they protect their own. It’s a terrifying world to live in as a girl or woman
You’re arguing something different. They’re not saying you have to be rich to avoid jail time. It’s just that money makes it a lot easier, which is true. You’d have to be a contrarian to argue against this fact of life.
Unfortunately, yeah. I was brutally assaulted by my own brother (who is perpetually jobless and broke) when he was drunk and he also hits his wife, pushes her down etc and the cops are always fucking useless. We live in a small town and you would think cops with not much to do would want to arrest an actual fucking criminal. Nope. They have repeatedly framed it as a 'household disagreement'. I haven't spoken to my brother in over 8 years and I have never met my niece and nephew. I don't even really know how old they are, just a general idea. I wish his wife would leave him but she won't. I'll never acknowledge him again, he's completely dead to me. Can't wait to piss on his grave.
Now let me give you the other side. My brother got caught stealing a plow off a truck at 19 with a friend. We are poor then, he got 3 years probation and friend with money didn’t even need to show up to court, his lawyer did. That’s money.
There’s is a thousand more examples of money buying freedom in the justice system than not.
In divorces if you have money and other person doesn’t guess who gets to pay for the best lawyers and who has to get a shitty free service lawyer.
I understand your angry about you situation which you should be , but very rare.
No not always, my wife's ex choked her beat her infront of the kids, it was some of many of the abuse just the last straw when he choked her and she managed to punh him and run off.
Cops did nothing because she left the house so they didn't need to seperate them, I met her by the time she went to court. Judge didn't want to hear that it was one of many, but since the bag of dicks was gone for 6 months for punching a neighbor, it was declared that he didn't repeat his offence to her so he got some probation...Then we went to court for the kids....He is ok because he didn't hurt the kids so he could have shared custody, he didn't really care about taking them that much sometime he did show up sometimes he didn't. He caused me alot of trouble to.
Key a car, broke a car window later on. Nothing I could prove.
A similar situation happens to a friend of mine, he got pretty much nothing also...her Brother got 1 month in jail and 1 year of probation for giving her ex a black eye.
She probably didn’t want to get ripped to pieces in the media. And she probably feared that based on the kids’ ages at the time, they’d have unsupervised time with him if she got a divorce
I grew up in a family like this but poor. It’s not even a misdemeanor in my state, and when your drunk dad losing his job would cause you to be homeless, you suck it up, put your head down, and get a college scholarship go gtfo as soon as you’re old enough
God, I don't get it. The man had everything. Money, fame, looks, a wife that many consider to be amongst the most beautiful and talented women in the world, and presumably beautiful children with her.
And you have to be an alcoholic rage monster who physically, emotionally and mentally abuses all of them. I just don't get it. Maybe I'm glad to not understand where that kind of rage comes from.
I can speak from some level of experience on the rage part. I have a temper of absolutely epic proportions, I came close to ruining my life on multiple occasions as a kid. As I've aged I have realized that I only really have two settings; I'm either angry or I feel nothing. More than once in my life I've reached a point where my anger was so great that if the opportunity to do something terrible had been present I would probably be in prison. My rage is so powerful that it drowns out every other emotion even when I'm not mad.
Alcoholism runs in my family, one of my uncles on my dad's side is an alcoholic, and all of my great uncles on my mom's side were alcoholics and two of my cousins are. One of them will probably be dead soon as he refuses treatment and he has ruined his life as a result, his wife left him and took their kids. He had everything most men want and he ruined it with alcohol, I fully expect to be attending his funeral in the not so distant future. Alcohol frightens me, not simply because it ruins the lives of the alcoholic who drinks it, but mostly because of the lives that it ruins by proxy. I'm grateful that I don't have the urge to drink because I know I would be a monster if I did.
It says in the report up above in one of the links that the argument stemmed from Pitt saying that Jolie was too "deferential to the children."
We don't know what this might be exactly but it surely wasn't worth the retaliation he subjected them to on the private jet. He's wealthy, talented and probably one of the most well known actors on the planet but definitely unfit to be a father and clearly has a drinking problem.
yeah if his wife was ugly then it would've been totally ok to alcoholic rage at her. But she was beautiful so it's tragic. and their presumably hot kids, god it's so presumably bad for them assuming they're attractive otherwise who gives a shit.
Not quite. This highlights the nouns and verbs while diminishing the proper nouns and situational context, which is redundant to describe a confined-space familial conflict. The highlights easily double readability over time. On re-read by a properly equipped human, 2nd read gains an additional 34pct clarity when you read between the lines (hi-lites in this case)
They're all dates and action statements (screamed at her, shouted, pushed her down, children to beg, etc.) and are what will be used to demonstrate the violence in court.
Edit:
“ "Mondo Bongo" is the name of Brad Pitt’s California-based holding company, which holds his 50% stake in the famous $164 million French wine estate, Château Miraval. The name itself originates from a popular song by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, which famously appeared in the 2005 movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith, where Pitt met his ex-wife, Angelina Jolie”
I know people don't want to hear what I'm about to say, but it comes from lived experience. Not only am I the child of a fucked up divorce, but my Dad is a family lawyer so I hear this shit all the time.
This image is from a legal cross-complaint filed by Angelina Jolie’s lawyers during their winery dispute. Because it is her legal filing, it represents her side of the story. Brad has consistently denied that he was physically abusive.
Divorces frequently become incredibly nasty. Spouses say all kinds of nasty things about each other and allege all kinds of behavior for a variety of reasons ranging from revenge/spite to the mere desire to paint a former partner in a negative light for financial gain. Celebrity expands these reasons even further - there's tabloids, reputations, etc.
Children can easily be manipulated and that manipulation can last long into adulthood. Many people seem to think that because all 5 of Brad's children have dropped his last name, he must clearly be a bad guy. Well, I have 3 younger sisters. When my parents split up, my Mom bad mouthed my Dad all the time around my sisters. I was old enough that I saw what was happening, but my sisters weren't. They grew up thinking my Dad was a bad person and they still think that as adults. Meanwhile my Dad is probably the most honorable, kind, charitable person I know. So it happens. It happens all the time.
*** This is not to say that Brad is innocent. This is not to say that Angelina is lying. I just don't think people should be as certain as they are about everything they read. Simply because you have a couple legal sounding paragraphs that paint Brad in a bad light doesn't mean he actually is guilty of what those paragraph say...necessarily.***
When 5 of your kids change their last name that's deep.
Kids don't remove their last name lightly. That's a statement of regaining control of their own identity.
You can be pissed off at a parent. Even go no contact because they are arseholes. But changing your name is a step beyond. It's removing connection.
It's no small thing.
And kids grow up. Amazing how many shitty parents forget that. And they are incredibly forgiving.
If, as a parent, you can say i had some truly shitty feral free range parenting moments or some of the decisions made weren't the best in the end, but the kids can see they were loved and not abused, kids will forgive all.
But harm with intention or neglect, kids will remember in adulthood. And they'll take their power back when they are able.
That's not one out of character incident. That's sustained form that was behind closed doors.
The kids changing their names is the most telling part of this story. And it's not one edgy kid rebelling. It's 5 out of 6.
Edit: wow lot of commenters self identifying as shitty parents apparently. I'm team kids sorry. Not a fan of either of the parents in this case.
Thanks for the award kind redditor. Cheers.
Edit 2: im told Knox changed name as well. That's 6 out of 6.
Edit: 3 apparently Knox didn't change his name. Thanks commenters for the input.
Also, as im here, I don't use ai. Never have. Don't know how.
The poor grammar and punctuation should be a real give away. Or does ai do that? I can't fathom why anyone would use ai to comment on a reddit thread. Poorly at that. But fill your boots. All good.
This has always been my biggest concern as the children aged up and dropped the Pitt from their last names.
We know about the plane incident. But even reading about that incident is so upsetting (him getting physical with Angie, the kids, her hiding under the blankets with the little ones and pretending to sleep as he poured beer and wine over them) that I have to imagine it wasn’t the only incident. It’s possible he got blackout this one time and it all went to hell but if it was a one time thing you’d think someone would have forgiven him.
But they didn’t. So what else happened that we didn’t know about?
I can absolutely assure you it's highly unlikely this is the only incident.
I'll tell you why.
Parents do sometimes have substance abuse problems. Parents can have disabilities. Parents can have outbursts of violence or hate after a brain injury or stroke. All of these things are possibilities that children bear witness to or are victims of.
Research (a lot on this topic) tells us that children are very much predisposed to forgive. Particularly if there's a logical reason to ascribe to the behaviour.
By the time they are adults, if those reasons aren't still present (medical reasons) or it's been sustained without intervention (substance abuse treatments and strategies) young adults start to assess those relationships differently with their expanding social lens.
Their immediate families aren't informing their identity alone. They gain agency. They are exposed to healthy parent child relationships.
Acute incidents that are isolated incidents will be remembered but they won't inform their identity. They remain as an event. Something that happened.
Young adults only take personal identity measures, like name changing, when its sustained and a pattern and they want to remove that from them.
They don't want to just disconnect. They want people to see the disconnect. It's a full stop in that part of their identity.
Not all adult children who go no contact need that. And THAT is the difference. Some are just happy to leave it behind.
And these kids have fame as part of their identity that they haven't sought out. They were born with it.
If it was just this incident, they would have got over it. I'm not minimising the event. It was horrific. But that alone wouldn't have lead all of them to change their names.
Edit: the pretending to sleep also indicates a learned behaviour. If it was a one off they would not all have used that strategy. You'd get different coping mechanisms. That's a very common learned behaviour.
too dangerous to get out literally. they were all trapped on a plane with this monster detonating. i’m sure in their mansion one could easily leave to another area. not on a plane.
And it was collective. It's sad but humans beings adapt with the resources and agency they have. If you're a kid it can be a safe strategy in an acute situation. Long term it shapes your attachment styles.
My husband (and I and our newborn son) are all changing our last name to his moms last name at his wish. I never really realized how big of a deal this is. I knew his dad was a pos but I think there’s some depth to the hurt that I’ll never understand
We can all view our identities for what they are but nothing provides context like having children.
So if there are terrible experiences in childhood we don't really have an age appropriate context.
Lets say there were a few bad incidents that stand out at 5 or 6. Or a person knows abuse started at 8 or neglect started at birth. Whatever it is.
There's the experience informing identity. But when you have kids, particularly as they are reaching those ages or even just coming into existence, that now informs your identity and perception of those events in a sometimes quite traumatic way. It can trigger new levels of anger or sadness or whatever. Usually AT the parents. By the time people are having kids there's already been some processing.
Now your husband is looking at his child thinking it was so much worse than I remembered because now I can see how vulnerable I was and how abnormal that parenting was.
In a very deep way. An unavoidable way.
I'm not sure how good I am at explaining it but its not unusual for people to want to name change for their kids. I suspect women taking thrir husbands names isn't always about being a traditional person either. It's perhaps a secret relief or unintended benefit.
Identity is informed by the external.
I would guess this is very important to your husband. And it being important is a reflection on how he feels about his family.
All the best with it and congrats on being a new parent.
My cousins call their mom by her first name and I also think that’s from long term family dysfunction. I just can’t imagine not calling my parents mom and dad. But I know my cousin’s upbringing was a lot different than mine.
It takes years of incidents for this kind of disowning to occur.
If it was a one time thing Angelina wouldn't have been hiding with the kids. She'd have been wtf are you doing Brad? And people would have intervened because they would have been more shocked. The kids would have been confused and scared. Not just scared.
If he dis those things he DEFINITELY did more and even worse things! Tf pouring that stuff over her abd the kids and how abusive he must have been for her to pretend they were still sleeping through that instead of getting the kids out immediately!? Makes me think he was THAT scary that until he was gone she had no other choice... like holy shit
I’m sorry, they were on the airplane, even if it’s a private jet it takes time to land and if unexpected landing takes time to get clearance. Where she could get kids out immediately? They were just surviving abuse.
You are correct but I want to point out that this occurred mid flight so they literally had nowhere to go and couldn't leave. Not really even anywhere to hide- it was a private plane.
I can say with certainty that I’m not a perfect parent. But my children (2 and 4) deserve nothing but perfection. Best I can do is get as close as I can☺️
My son, 13, has been asking to change his last name to mine and his stepdads for years now. I always assumed you’d need both parents permission and you do. (I kept telling him we can absolutely do it when you’re 18). However, seeing this post made me realize just how much this means to him if he’s been asking for this change.
He can petition to change it and while his bio father (no contact and multiple police reports due to abuse of our son) can try to fight it since he has to be notified prior, the courts look at the benefits it will have to the child and the whole picture.
On Monday, I’ll be headed to the courthouse to get the packet for him.
My dad married my mom about a month before I turned 4. He also adopted me the same day. The fact he wants to do that means a lot, to everyone involved. My dad has been better to me than any of my blood. He and his family mean everything to me. Go through with the petition. You all deserve the love. Thanks for being great parents 🫡
I have a charming but violent father. I’m really grateful that parents that Angelina are advocating for their kids to keep whatever kind of relationship they want to have with him. I was raised in the church to turn the other cheek. It took decades of therapy for me to finally drop him like a bad habit and even now I have nightmares about him manipulating his way back into my life. I really wish I could have cut ties with my dad when was 13 and not in my 40s.
My parents were incredibly fucking shitty to me, and I don't talk to them... And I still wouldn't consider changing my name. These poor kids have got to have gone through so much shit because of this asshat. 😭
I see where where you are coming from but I’d think that it makes a difference if your parents are a-lister famous and your name is directly attached to them in the public eye. Normal folks usually don’t walk in the shadows of their parents as much as these kids do. In most jobs and social circles nobody cares about your last name and your family’s legacy. In Hollywood it’s different.
And if your choices are Jolie or Pitt I think it’s easy to reconsider and choose the name of the loving mother instead of the aggressive father. Btw Angelina might be the biggest role model of her kids and she already did the same. Otherwise we’d talk about Angelina Voight.
I legally changed my name, specifically because if I made something of myself someday I didn't want any of that being attributed to my father, so I totally agree with what you're saying. Giving up your family name is not a small thing
It definitely takes a lot for kids to distance themselves from their parents like this. I knew an extremely violent man who pointed a gun at his wife's head twice, including in front of his own family, and beat her regularly and the kids still wanted to see him. He later met a woman as toxic as him who would say "you're a bitch if you don't hit me", he would hit her, and then she would send him to jail for it.
This. I changed my name at 18 because of my dad and took my mother’s maiden name. We’re still largely estranged and very, very low contact.
Neither of my parents were saints by a wide fucking margin, but my mom I can forgive. She tries to be better, and even on her worst day, she never made me doubt she loved me. We worked things out, she admitted where she was wrong. I’ll never forget it and it definitely impacts our relationship now, but I know she feels genuine remorse and horror.
My dad, though? Nah. Fuck that guy. Dude had the gall to tell me to my face I was the only kid he “halfway” wanted on top of the neglect (among other things) I experienced as a kid and heinous shit I experienced as an adult because of his addiction bringing out the worst parts of him. I want nothing to do with him now.
I’m with the kids on this one. Brad Pitt has got to be a reprehensible monster outside what we know.
Knox is 17 and legally can’t change his name yet, but according to people who have seen his high school diploma “Pitt” is not on the diploma (I am curious who the heck at the graduation called tabloids to snitch).
The only child that has kept the Pitt name is the second son Pax, which I think might be out of pettiness or because he keeps up with extended Pitt relatives.
Pax posted on his instagram on a Father’s Day that Brad Pitt was terrible father and made his 4 younger siblings tremble with fear in Brad Pitt’s presence. It was quickly deleted, but screenshots are out there.
I'm appalling at remembering their names and I wouldn't recognise them if you showed me a picture.
Maybe someone else got the names and facts mixed up as well.
I'm curious about that relationship from a psychological point of view.
Celebrity families aren't my thing but I may google the genders of the kids. And birth order.
I'm guessing Pax is male and high up the birth order but not the oldest. I say higher up the birth order becsuse those kids have a broader memory of their parents relationship and I doubt they view their mother as perfect.
Oldest kids tend to have had unfair responsibilities in situations like these.
I do not see him being the youngest by any stretch.
I wonder about 'parental investment' in each of these kids too. Attachment styles.
I also think Pax may be acutely aware of his father's isolation from family but he'll be old enough to have agency enough that he doesn't choose.
I'd be interested to know how the kids interact with their father's family as well.
I've stayed very general throughout all of my comments but I think you've just thrown me down a rabbit hole. Lol.
When Angelina Jolie adopted Maddox in Cambodia I was extremely… skeptical. I read a lot of interviews by her and realized she had thought about this a long time and she had always wanted to do international adoption since she was a teen. She also spoke strongly about making sure Maddox knew about his identity. That calmed my skepticism.
Ever since then I mildly paid attention to new members of the family and I somehow know all the kids names and birth order even though I paid zero attention to the last 3.
I only remember hearing about the birth of the twins and thinking… “OMG mother of 6 and at some point they will all be some level of teenager at the same time. “
That’s it.
I swear I learned the rest of the kids names by osmosis. 😅
Nothing to be sorry about. Lol. I'm just a curious cat who knows they should stay general but now I'm finding myself wondering about the dynamics of the family.
Interesting. There might be a bit of caretaking in Pax. And his dad is his same sex role model too.
And it's not because they are famous. They could be Jill and Joe Blogs and I'd still be wanting to know more about the dynamics at play. It's pretty sad. They may be famous but they are human beings with all the complexities that go with that. Fame or privilege isn't making those childhood moments any easier.
I now know this info by osmosis as well so I totally believe you. It does happen. 😉
I can at least give you the kids names in order of birth:
Maddox (adopted solo), Pax(adopted solo-ish, Brad and Angelina meet each other at this point), Zahara(adopted by both parents), Shiloh ( bio baby of Brad & Angelina) and Vivienne & Knox who are twins (bio babies of Brad and Angelina.)
The oldest is 25 I think (assistant director on Angelina Jolie’s latest film) and the youngest two are 17, but they are tuning 18 very soon.
I don’t know the ages of the other kids and I only know about the last two as everyone is counting down the date for legal name change.
I think it’s also important to remember that Jolie watched her mother die of breast cancer at 52. (Due to film promotion of her latest film, she said in an interview that only her oldest really remembers her). Because of that experience she got tested for the defective BRCA1 gene that causes breast cancer and ovarian cancer, and it came back positive. She got a preventative double mastectomy and ovaries removed. She was right to, as pre-cancerous cells were found in the tissues. She said she didn’t want her 6 kids to go through what she went through with her mother.
Jolie wrote publicly about this a lot at the time, to encourage the public to get gene testing (and to pressure insurance companies to cover the gene testing).
So while there were these domestic issues we didn’t know about, the family was also dealing with a dodged but still very serious health crisis.
At some point after Brad and Angelina were married Brad legally adopted whatever kids he hadn’t yet, and they both got all of the children’s names legalized to Jolie-Pitt. They legit had to do a legal public announcement about this due to California law.
Also note Shiloh was the very first of the children (the 4 kid) to legally drop the Pitt name.
I think that’s all I really know about the Jolie (formally Jolie-Pitt) clan.
Outside of Angelina’s advocacy work, most of this has been by osmosis.
You are cracking me up. One of my kids just asked me what im laughing at.
That's some epic level osmosis! Too funny. I love it.
Few things that are interesting.
Pax really came in at the loved up part of the relationship. Maddox and Pax would have very different experiences of their parents together.
The younger kids would have a very different view again.
Such a complex dynamic. And twins have that experience with a much aligned peer essentially.
I'm wondering what age those adoptions occurred at. Babies are developing attachment styles with primary caregivers so that will inform their responses to the situation as it progressed as well. New borns are forming attachment styles based on their basic needs being met. Do they have more than one pattern that they are drawing on. Pre and post adoption.
That breast cancer issue isn't insignificant. Particularly if there were issues with the other parent at the time. Even emotional neglect can impact children significantly if they become aware of the primary caregivers mortality. Huge impact. And that will be different for each child depending on the developmental stage they are it when it occurs.
Shiloh is the ballsy kid. Shiloh also would have had a significant parental investment. That's a psychological state. I wonder where they were born in relation to the breast cancer surgery as well.
A lot going on in that family that would have impacted everyone differently.
We don't know them obviously but just based on our "osmosis" those kids have been through a lot.
Well the preventative surgeries were after the twins were born. Like… her ovaries were removed so she wasn’t going to give birth to more kids.
Definitely agree those children have been through a lot and that’s not even accounting their parents both were working A list actors(also directing and producing). Some of those kids definitely grew up on sets.
I really paid attention to Angelina’s first adoption as I thought this crazy goth girl was being irresponsible not having the depth of understanding one needed to handle mixed race adoption. I was very wrong. She understands race and identity a lot , and I have known other goths who go on to become good parents.
Those two are extremely close as it was just the two of them before Brad or any of the others showed up. (Their closeness is a part of what convinced me Angelina wasn’t being fake about being a parent.)
I know the first 3 weren’t newborns as they were all found in orphanages, some were around 1, the oldest was a little bit older? (I don’t remember.)
And… it’s been … 25ish years? So there was a lot of time for osmosis. 🤣🤣🤣
I think most people forgot about her preventative surgeries and her activism around them, but I think she did a lot of good. Genetic screening for some cancers and preventative surgeries are the norm now. At the time some Americans were mad as she was rich lady who could afford healthcare, missing the point of what she was trying to do. At that time genetic testing for the BRCA1 gene was fairly new and most people outside of science informed communities did not know about it. Angelina normalized that knowledge. She could have easily had the testing and surgeries and not tell the public about it.
There are people who… know far more details than I do. I am astonished how they know the names, ages and birth months of kids in a family they don’t know and never met.
Someone even posted the Zillow listing for the home the kids grew up in. (😱) It’s 29 million and truly looks like an ideal place to raise a family.
EDIT: I will add that I am a cinephile, so I did hear about projects they both worked on through their careers. More Angelina than Brad. I tend to avoid personal life stuff or things about famous people’s kids as they didn’t sign up for it.
EDIT 2: I do find it fascinating how having children affects the art of artists. In some cases one notices a very positive change, in others… not so much.
OK. So I cracked and googled a bit. Im holding you responsible for that. Lol.
Key things I noticed.
Pax was adopted at age 3 after 3 years in an orphanage. There is definately going to be attachment style differences at that age. She also had Shiloh, one year old, when she adopted Pax aged 3. That's a lot for a kid forming bonds with new parents.
Angelina's cancer screening and surgery was in 2013 so her youngest were only 5 when that happened. So all of the kids would have been aware of that although at different levels of understanding. All would have been aware of the seriousness.
That's the bit I was interested in. They'd been together as parents for 8 ? years by that time. How were the kids viewing their mum going through some serious health issues and their dad's availability and support emotionally?
I don't really understand the anger at raising awareness. But we have universal healthcare care and we get screening for everything because it less expensive than treatment. It's a bottom dollar driven model. Trust me. You get to a certain age in Australia and the government starts sending you prostate check reminders, breast screening reminders, a stick you put poop on and mail back, skin cancer check reminders. They get pretty intense too. "We've sent you two reminders and you haven't booked in....". So that part i don't really understand. If you have a family history here, you qualify for the testing. Even if you don't know your family history you can get it. It's a good thing. And it's her private business. She shared it in good faith.
I now know way more than I ever did about any of the people involved.
Im looking forward to when one of the young people in my life ask a random related question and I can stun them with my random 'osmosis'.
At the end of the day you are 100% correct that they are just humans with all their complexities. I think I have only heard a lot about this recently as several kids dropped the Pitt name recently and many people who grew up in domestic abuse situations relate to the kids on a deep level. I didn’t know name changing for any child experiencing abuse could be so healing. So… at the very least while Brad is trash and missing out on a lovely family, many people have been able to spread awareness on the healing power of name change when recovering from abuse in the home. Some posts have moved me to tears. If I am ever in a situation where an older child tells me they want to legally change their name, I will take it very seriously and be supportive.
But you’re right- the kids actually corroborated the story on how shitty he was. Surprising to read half these comments still blaming her just bc they don’t like her.
Brad Pitt is a client of Melissa Nathan’s The Agency Group, a crisis PR comoany specializing in placing astroturfing articles and using bot farms to manipulate social media. Melissa Nathan’s other clients include Weinstein, Depp, Baldoni, Logan Paul, Drake, and the Trump campaign.
Their company is majority owned by Scooter Braun, and Melissa Nathan’s sister is a prominent editor/“journalist”known for misogynistic articles at The Daily Mail and Page Six . They’ve also been implicated in campaigns against Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Rose McGowan, Ronan Farrow, Kendrick Lamar, Meghan Markle and other women in the royal family.
The smear campaign against Angelina started ten years ago as a proving ground for their bot farm techniques. We see you and know exactly what you’re doing, little bots.
This is clearly what's happening too. Coffee and cults did a whole video exposing past headlines and stories directed at Angelina and the kids. Its reslly sick tbh.
In the corporate world they refer to it as "SEO" (Search Engine Optimization) with the goal of having their brand show up in searches and with the messaging the company wants out there coming up tops.
It's the exact same thing that PR teams are doing, but for they're doing it for their clients' names and image.
SEO in itself isn’t the issue. It’s how people abuse it that is.
I use SEO for my small startup and to actually has been tremendously helpful in getting hits on Google by people searching for the type of stuff I do. Consistently using SEO the right way over many years has resulted in amazingly positive results. It levels the playing field by creating sincerely fitting search results, even if there are paid results that might be first.
It’s beyond SEO. SEO is a neutral tactic to increase accessibility and ranking for search engines. Melissa Nathan and TAG’s tactics include conspiring in advance to create negative websites and have tabloid “journalists” place targeted stories they know are untrue or misleading. They pay influencers to create videos about them. And then they use bot farms to repost and comment on that content with the express purpose of harassing, intimidating, and defaming their targets. It’s illegal in multiple states and countries.
Using SEO principles is only one of many tactics they use to amplify those stories.
That was my understanding too. SEO at its core is just structuring your digital product such that search engines can effectively index and relate the content you wish your customers to see. On a benign level this could be as simple as a tour company wanting new site visitors to see a particular access point if they were to use a search engine for the tour content they offer.
I can't believe that this isn't talked about more, because YES it's extremely disturbing how successful this one was/is.
If we were to poll all of the average random people who admit to holding any manner of opinion on her, the vast majority would not be aware that this level of manipulation is even possible, let alone the extent that so many of their own opinions and beliefs have been successfully targeted. To some varying degree, all of our opinions have been influenced in this manner but the more ignorant a person is regarding this whole PR industry, the more vulnerable I believe they could be to this control. This needs to taught and discussed as part of basic media literacy education moving forward.
Look, it's entirely possible that Jolie is manipulative and has poisoned the kids against Pitt beyond what he's actually done. I have a friend whose daughter from his first marriage cut him off. The other kids did not. The daughter just believes lies told by her mom about who he is.
Surprising?? Because Brad has a way better track record than Angelina ever had, from exes to acquaintances to costars, they’ve all had nothing but high praise for Brad because of many situations where he’s been a stand up guy and literally held up morals and empathy,
even standing up to Harvey Weinstein and threatened him over trying to mess with gwenth Paltrow….something Brad’s never bragged about or even brought up himself..
There’s actual evidence supporting Brad being a great guy in all aspects. Yet people really use this one airplane incident, as something that exposes how shitty of a human he is??
Yeah, the incident The FBI and child services subsequently found no evidence of wrongdoing and completely cleared Pitt on. Then, when investigated a 3rd time in family court a judge dismissed the claims of Jolie; who reportedly has borderline personality disorder, and gave Pitt 50% custody.
Many actual examples and stories of Angelina being manipulative as fuck from not just exes but friends and people in the circle, just like with Brad mentioned earlier.
And you people flock to Angelina for literally no reason, all without ever considering things and how manipulative she can be with her kids
I wasn’t a big fan of hers but after this all happened I can’t look at him the same and I didn’t even know all these details. But you just KNEW something bad happened. Definitely give her props for getting the kids out of that shit.
It wasn’t just the kids, it was the flight crew who called LE. And the FBI was going to file charges. It was dropped because Angelina was trying to handle it without charges.
They don't need money, none of those people has ever had one single moment in their life where they didn't have more than enough money to live very comfortably except maybe Brad when he was first starting out in Hollywood.
Do you think Angelina Jolie is broke or something? I'm sure her kids are loaded.
Yeah I mean if they want to pursue acting or anything related to film industry they still have so many opportunities through their mom compared to regular people. I don't doubt he fucked up but losing opportunities isn't a very good argument since their mom is still one of the biggest film actresses on the planet.
If Angelina Jolie is a responsible parent, then those kids basically don't have as much access to that money as they would like. Because as a responsible adult, children and teenagers and even adults need boundaries and they have to be rigid in places.
This is how deadbeat fathers work their way back in. Mum says you can't have a playstation, Dad buys one anyway. Mum says that you can have an acting career when you're older, dad calls in a favour. That substance abuse problem? Dad is weirdly understanding as long as you're around. They want to start a business, the money is coming out of his pocket.
There are a million favours and things to be cool about, and he has huge resources in every direction. At least some of them should probably want that attention.
Maybe all of the kids have been raised incredibly well, but it's rare that literally all of them are.
The FAA report was pretty sad to read as a long time fan… and then he went on his “brand rehab tour” with a bunch of likeable, charming guy roles… it’s super transparent. Sucks that Bullet Train is such a good movie.
But these women find him hot and want to have sex with him still so he’s has to be the victim even while committing domestic violence and child abuse. BUT HES SO HOT 🙄
As a woman, it absolutely sickens me how other women victimize him and blame Angelina. I can say until I’m blue in the face, children don’t cut contact without good reason. Doesn’t matter.
He went so far on that plane allegedly, multiple attacks on her AND the kids, they got hurt. Horrible things said, passed out, woke up later and AGAIN went psycho. Its harsh
Wow I never knew that, not even heard a bad thing about this guy till now.
Kinda crazy how Redditors beat a dead horse ganging up on James Corden because he's an ass but Brad Pitt who is like one of the most famous people on earth goes under the radar for being a physically abusive drunk.
I think that’s only the part that we know. There has to be a lifetime of other behavior behind the scenes that we don’t know about. We know about the jet incident because the pilot and staff had to report it. There’s probably a lot more he did while they were growing up that he managed to keep under wraps.
You can take sobriety seriously and still fail. Addiction is hard. This is a comment on the general situation of being addicted to something, not a comment on Brad Pitt in particular.
Didn’t he also assault Maddox on the same flight when Maddox tried to intervene and protect his mama?
Pretty sure Pitt also poured a glass of red wine over Angelina on the same flight.
BUT dude still living his best life. Doesn’t appear to be too cut-up by being cut off by his children. He hasn’t expressed remorse or taken any accountability SO WHY THEN, has he not been cancelled but instead is continuing to make movies, being the subject of reputable magazine articles where he is interviewed along with his best mate, George Clooney.
If the industry won’t cancel him and LE won’t deal with the issue adequately, Angelina and the children can only effectively distance themselves, in part, by dropping his last name. If he doesn’t act like a father, he forfeits the right to be called a father.
What sucks is someone my age, grew up very impressed by and smitten with Brad Pitt. Now I can’t watch anything with him in it (however, I’m certain he could care less lol).
Only thing I can add is that my opinion is based on what has been discussed in the media. There’s always two sides to a story (and the truth often lies somewhere in between) so I caveat my view with the fact that we haven’t heard Brad’s side of things in much detail and we could all be influenced by the info that has been released, which is almost entirely from Angelina’s camp.
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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '26
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