Angelina Jolie drops FBI case over Brad Pitt plane incident: Reports

Angelina Jolie is reportedly dropping her lawsuit against the FBI over documents related to her alleged plane fight with ex-husband Brad Pitt.
The “Maria” star anonymously filed a Freedom of Information Act request against the bureau for more documentation on its investigation into the highly publicized 2016 incident, according to People magazine and Fox News. The actress dropped the yearslong case on Wednesday, the outlets report.
While aboard a private jet in September 2016, Pitt was allegedly violent toward his then-wife and children during the flight. The “Wolfs” star has denied the incident became physical.
The FBI and the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services launched an investigation into Pitt and the in-flight altercation soon after. In her divorce filing that month, Jolie listed the day after the alleged incident as the date of the couple’s separation.
The bureau closed its investigation later that year, and no charges were brought against Pitt. He was also cleared of child abuse allegations by LA’s DCFS.
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Pitt, 60, and Jolie, 49, share six children — Maddox, 23; Pax, 20; Zahara, 19; Shiloh, 18; and 16-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox — who were between 8 and 15 years old at the time of the alleged incident.
In July, Pitt sought to dismiss Jolie’s request for his private communications regarding the family plane ride, calling the demand a “serious intrusion” that went beyond the details of their family trip.
In an October 2022 filing referencing the incident, Jolie’s lawyers alleged Pitt “grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her, and then grabbed her shoulders and shook her again before pushing her into the bathroom wall,” during a flight from the couple’s Chateau Miraval winery in France to California.
The suit claimed Pitt started “deriding Jolie with insults” and, when one of the kids defended Jolie, the actor “lunged at his own child and Jolie grabbed him from behind to stop him.” Pitt then “threw himself backwards into the airplane’s seats injuring Jolie’s back and elbow,” the suit added.
Angelina Jolie takes aim at Brad Pitt:Actress claims ex-husband had ‘history of physical abuse’ in court filing
Jolie claimed in an April legal filing that Pitt’s abuse “started well before” the alleged 2016 incident.
“While Pitt’s history of physical abuse of Jolie started well before the family’s September 2016 plane trip from France to Los Angeles, this flight marked the first time he turned his physical abuse on the children as well. Jolie then immediately left him,” Jolie’s court filing stated at the time.
The actress’s attorney also accused Pitt of “unrelenting efforts to control and financially drain” her, as well as “attempting to hide his history of abuse, control, and coverup.”
Pitt’s lawyer said in a statement at the time that he would continue to respond in court to allegations from Jolie, saying the actor has taken responsibility for his actual actions but not aspects of her story that are not true.
“Brad has owned everything he’s responsible for from day one — unlike the other side — but he’s not going to own anything he didn’t do,” Pitt’s lawyer, Anne Kiley, said in a statement to The Associated Press. “He has been on the receiving end of every type of personal attack and misrepresentation.”
The former power couple still has an ongoing legal battle over Château Miraval, the French winery they once owned and where Jolie and Pitt married in 2014.
Contributing: Edward Segarra, USA TODAY