I didn’t get into this history on a previous Brad Pitt story – the Us Weekly cover story, which is mostly pro-Pitt propaganda – but let’s take some time to really go through it. In 2021, a private judge, Judge Ouderkirk, ruled in Brad Pitt’s favor on the child custody issue. Ouderkirk said that Pitt should have more custody of the younger kids and the ruling was almost entirely in Pitt’s favor alone. Angelina Jolie quickly pointed out that Ouderkirk failed to disclose his extensive business ties with Pitt’s lawyers and Ouderkirk also failed to recuse himself. Angelina appealed Ouderkirk’s ruling to the California Supreme Court, and they quickly overturned Ouderkirk’s whole ruling and cited Ouderkirk’s unethical behavior in failing to disclose his business relationship with Pitt’s lawyer, not to mention his failure to recuse.

One of the most telling parts of Ouderkirk’s unethical behavior was when he refused to allow the kids to testify on their own behalf about custody and how they really feel about Brad. At least three of the kids wanted to testify and Ouderkirk would not allow it, because Pitt’s lawyers asked the judge to shut it down. Now that Shiloh is removing “Pitt” from her legal name, the 2021 Ouderkirk situation is being brought up. Apparently, Shiloh was one of the kids who wanted to testify, and now that is being cited as one of the reasons why Shiloh doesn’t want anything to do with Brad. From the Daily Mail’s exclusive:

Brad Pitt’s daughter Shiloh waited four years to drop her father’s name — after a disagreement during a custody battle when she was only 14. Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, whose mother is Angelina Jolie, filed paperwork to drop the Pitt name on Monday May 30, three days after she turned 18 — the earliest point at which she could do so. A source close to the proceedings told me the move was ‘connected to the (alleged) abuse history’ by her father and also to ‘the violation of Shiloh’s victim’s rights’.

I am told that she blames her father for the legal moves which meant she did not get to testify about her wishes, regarding custody. She also did not get to speak about what happened on that fateful flight in 2016, which led to the end of her parents’ marriage — although she wanted to.

Under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act, federal crime victims have rights including: ‘The right not to be excluded from any such public court proceeding, unless the court, after receiving clear and convincing evidence, determines that testimony by the victim would be materially altered if the victim heard other testimony at that proceeding.’

The question of custody arrangements for the six Jolie-Pitt children — Pax, Maddox, Zahara, Shiloh, Knox and Vivienne — was decided during six months of hearings behind closed doors between December 2020 and May 2021. Jolie petitioned to have the children testify, but was unsuccessful. Judge John Oudekirk ruled that custody should be 50-50 and declined to hear evidence from the children, who had already undergone therapeutic evaluation, which was reported to the court. The judgement was set aside later in 2021, after Jolie appealed on the grounds that the judge had a commercial link to one of Pitt’s attorneys.

A source says: ‘The name change goes back to the custody battle, and Shiloh’s belief that her rights as a victim were violated. Shiloh believed she had the right, as a victim of crime, to testify — and was prevented from doing so.’

I’m told that there are no plans for her to pursue any further legal actions relating to her father. It’s not known whether younger siblings Knox and Vivienne might follow in her footsteps when they reach 18 in July 2026.

There were suggestions in supermarket magazines last month that Shiloh was planning to move in with her father as soon as she could. Other stories suggested that movie star Pitt was ‘hopeful’ of reconciling with his daughter, now that she is an adult. However in truth there seems zero prospect of this — or a rapprochement with any of the children, following the notorious mid-air confrontation.

While Shiloh has repeatedly walked red carpets with Jolie, neither she nor her siblings have done the same for Pitt. ‘This is the result of textbook parental alienation, and it is a great sadness in his life,’ I was told. ‘There have been years and years of (Angelina) telling and retelling the same lies (about Brad), and the reality is that she has alienated the kids, and the reality is that it is upsetting to Brad. He cares about all of them. It is devastating.’

[From The Daily Mail]

It’s interesting and bizarre that this one particular thing is seemingly being relitigated by Brad’s people – “Shiloh’s still mad that Brad didn’t want her to testify against him, so he asked an unethical, compromised judge to stop her.” Meanwhile, they’re all sort of glossing over the reason WHY Shiloh wanted to testify in the first place – because she clearly wants nothing to do with Brad, and she and her siblings were victims of a violent crime on that plane in 2016. I believe Shiloh wanted her day in court, and she wanted to put some stuff on the court record about what Brad did to her, her mother and her siblings. This isn’t “Angelina brainwashed the kids,” this is “the kids hate Brad for everything he’s done to them for eight f–king years.”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.