Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s divorce just got messier

The long on-going custody case over superstars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s five children will be further extended after the court ruled that the temporary private judge handling their case has been disqualified from their case.

John Ouderkirk made a ruling some time in May to alter a custody order in favour of Brad, who then got to spend more time with their children. Angelina then challenged the judges rule, and requested for the judge to be removed from the on-going custody battle with her estranged husband.

On 9 July, the lawmakers of California’s Second District Court of Appeal agreed with the Lara Croft star, ruling that Ouderkirk would be disqualified from their case after failing to disclose prior business dealings with Pitts lawyers, as this “might cause an objective person, aware of all the facts” to doubt Ouderkirk’s impartiality in the case.

This serves as a major legal victory for Jolie, and means that the preliminary ruling made by the private judge in favour of Pitt renders void, taking the superstars back to square one with their custody battle for their minor children.

The superstars met in 2004 when they were filming the hit spy thriller Mr and Mrs Smith, and admitted that, that was the time they fell in love with each other, even though Pitt was still married to actress Jennifer Aniston at the time.

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In 2006 they announced that they were expecting their first child together, two months after Aniston and Pitt got divorced. This was the same year that a judge also granted their request to change Jolie’s adopted children’s last names to Jolie-Pitt, and Pitts legal adoption of Maddox and Zahara was finalised soon after.

A couple of years later, the two Hollywood stars had Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, and then adopted Pax Jolie-Pitt, and in 2008 they fell pregnant with twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline.

They eventually got married in 2014, and their marriage did not last too long after Jolie filed for a divorce in 2016, requesting primary custody of their six children which has led to a long on-going custody battle.