Brad Pitt allegedly objected to his daughter, Shiloh, testifying about which parent she preferred to live with when he and her mother, Angelina Jolie, were locked in a court battle over which parent would get custody of her and her five siblings.
A source told Us Weekly that Shiloh was one of the children who wanted to testify during a 2021 court hearing before a private judge. Shiloh was 14 at the time.
Actor Brad Pitt and children Pax Jolie-Pitt (hidden) and Shiloh Jolie-Pitt (front) arrive for the U.S. premiere of Universal Pictures “Unbroken,” December 15, 2014 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. AFP PHOTO / ROBYN BECK (Photo credit should read ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)
Shiloh is now 18, and marked her birthday last month by hiring a lawyer to legally petition the Los Angeles County Superior court to change her name from “Shiloh Jolie-Pitt” to just “Shiloh Jolie.” Shiloh’s decision to drop her father’s last name is widely seen as indication that she has become estranged from her famous father amid her parents’ bitter and protracted divorce battle.
Back in 2021, Pitt’s legal team objected to any of his children testifying about their custody preferences, and the judge, John Ouderkirk, agreed. He also ruled that Pitt should have joint custody.
Jolie turned around and appealed the ruling to California’s Second District Court of Appeals, claiming that Ouderkirk’s ruling was unfair because he wouldn’t let three of her minor teenagers testify and because he wouldn’t let her present evidence about a drunken Pitt allegedly becoming violent with Jolie and several of his children during a private plane ride from Europe in September 2016.
After Jolie filed for divorce, she and Pitt initially hired Ouderkirk to oversee their case outside of regular court, so that their dispute wouldn’t be so public. Ouderkirk had presided over the former couple’s intimate 2014 wedding at their private chateau in the South of France.
At the time that Ouderkirk said no to the children testifying, family law attorneys said that the judge may have had the children’s best interests in mind when he made the ruling. The attorneys, speaking to this news organization, said it can be traumatic for children and teenagers to testify in divorce cases.
US actress Angelina Jolie (C) and children (from left) Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, Vivienne Marcheline Jolie-Pitt, Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt, and Knox Leon Jolie-Pitt arrive for the world premiere of Disney’s “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil” at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood on September 30, 2019. (Photo by VALERIE MACON / AFP) / The testimony can involve sharing personal information and sometimes making children feel as though they are testifying “for” one parent and “against” the other, the attorneys said.
The Second District Court of Appeal eventually sided with Jolie and said Ouderkirk should be removed from the case because he hadn’t disclosed prior business relationships with Pitt’s lawyers. The ruling rendered Ouderkirk’s joint-custody decision moot and meant that Jolie retained full-time custody, with Pitt granted visitation rights.
It’s not known what Shiloh would have said in her testimony — if she wanted a relationship with both her mother and father, or if she was concerned about her father’s alleged history of domestic violence.
A second source told Us Weekly that Shiloh’s relationship with her father shifted over time. “She (used to be) very close with Brad and his family, but that relationship (changed) in recent years,” the source said.
Shiloh was the much-wanted oldest biological child of Pitt and Jolie. The couple had been together a little over a year and already were the parents of three children Jolie had first adopted from Cambodia, Vietnam and Ethiopia.
Shiloh’s birth was treated by the media as an international news event. Her globe-trotting parents made the the unusual decision to travel to the African nation of Namibia for Shiloh’s birth in May 2006, CBS News reported at the time. Following the birth, the couple held a joint news conference with Namibian journalists, during which Pitt called the arrival of their daughter “truly peaceful.”
The privilege of publishing the first photos of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt also became the subject of a fierce bidding war among news and entertainment outlets. People magazine won the rights to a cover story on Shiloh’s birth by paying a reported $4 million, which Pitt and Jolie said would be donated to charity.
The storied union between Pitt and Jolie came crashing down in September 2016 when Jolie filed for divorce, after the reported altercation on the private plane, traveling from the South of France to Los Angeles.
People magazine reported last week that Shiloh’s decision to drop her father’s last name was in part motivated by her mother’s allegations related to her father’s “abuse history.” Pitt has long denied the abuse allegations and his representatives have pointed out that he was never charged with a crime.
There have been news reports over the past several years that indicated that Pitt has probably long been estranged from his older adopted children — Maddox, 22, Pax, 20, and Zahara, 19. But it’s become apparent that he may no longer have relationships with Shiloh and his two other biological children, 15-year-old twins, Vivienne and Knox.
The news about Shiloh hiring an attorney to officially distance herself from her father has proved to be especially painful for Pitt, a source told People last week.
“He’s aware and upset that Shiloh dropped his last name. He’s never felt more joy than when she was born. He always wanted a daughter,” the source said.