Brad Pitt's Lawyers Fire Back at Angelina Jolie in Court a Day After Her Abuse Allegations

A Brad Pitt source calls Angelina Jolie’s new claims of past abuse a “misdirection and distraction” as the exes continue their battle over their French winery Château Miraval.

Lawyers for Pitt, 60, filed a motion in court April 5 demanding that Jolie, 48, produce nondisclosure agreements she has made others sign. 

The motion is in response to Jolie’s own filing from a day prior. Jolie’s legal team filed a motion seeking to release communications they say would prove Pitt would not let Jolie sell her share of the winery to him unless she agreed to a "more onerous" and "expansive" NDA.

Lawyers for Pitt seek to prove that the NDA Pitt asked her to sign was no more restrictive than ones she asks others to sign on a regular basis and allege that less than six months after Jolie sold her shares of Miraval, her lawyer proposed an even broader, mutual non-disparagement clause to Pitt in connection to their divorce proceedings.

“For example, if Jolie conditioned her continued employment of an individual on that individual’s agreement to an NDA covering what they witnessed in her home — including her treatment of her children and Pitt — that would be highly probative of whether she truly believed the provision requested by Pitt was an ‘unconscionable gag order,’ ” Pitt's lawyers wrote in court documents obtained by PEOPLE.

In their April 4 motion, Jolie’s lawyers suggested the actor feared that sealed documents included in their separate, years-long custody battle could be made public without the NDA.

As part of that filing, her lawyers referenced the incident that occurred the day before Jolie filed for divorce in 2016, stating, "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."

The FBI investigated the incident and Pitt was not charged.

But the Pitt source says, "This case isn’t about what took place on a plane in 2016. It’s about whether they had an agreement not to sell their interests in the winery and family home without the other’s consent. That’s what Brad and his team are focused on.”

"They keep using the same tired playbook year after year," adds a friend of Pitt.

Paul Murphy, an attorney for Jolie claimed in a statement obtained by PEOPLE that the NDAs are indeed different.

“For Pitt to equate common NDAs covering confidential information employees learn at work, with him attempting to cover up his history of abuse is, frankly, shameful. All she wanted was separation and health. She deserves peace after all these years,” he said.

The back-and-forth over an NDA came up last year in the court too.

A source on Pitt's side said in June 2023 that "the non-disparagement clause in the contract" was a "totally standard" business transaction; meanwhile, a Jolie source had claimed Pitt "refused to complete the Miraval sale with Jolie unless she agreed to being silenced about the abuse."

A hearing is set for May 16.