Famed actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie signed off on a divorce settlement Monday, according to US media, marking a turning point in the eight-year legal saga. Jolie’s attorney James Simon confirmed the settlement to People Magazine, saying in a statement that Jolie was “focused on finding peace and healing for their family”. “This is just one part of a long ongoing process that started eight years ago,” Simon said. “Frankly, Angelina is exhausted, but she is relieved this one part is over.”

No details of the settlement between the former power couple were immediately available. Jolie filed to dissolve their marriage in September 2016 and the pair has remained locked in a court battle since. Jolie filed for divorce a few days after a flight during which she alleged in court papers that Pitt “choked” one of their children and hit another during a plane fight. In the papers lodged in a Los Angeles court and widely quoted in US media, Jolie describes a lengthy eruption by Pitt as the couple flew with the children from California to France in Sept 2016.

In the ensuing years, the A-listers have clashed over custody of the children — three biological and three adopted — and more recently over the ownership of a luxury French property they bought together. In 2018, the couple reached a custody arrangement for their six children, three of whom are adopted, though it appears to have since unraveled.

Pitt, 61, and Jolie, 49, have also been embroiled in a separate legal battle stemming from the sale of Jolie’s share of Chateau Miraval, the southern French vineyard where the couple had their wedding. In Feb 2022, Pitt accused his one-time co-star of breaching his rights when she offloaded her share in the winery to a subsidiary of Stoli Group, which is owned by a Russian-born billionaire.

In court papers he filed, Pitt said “Jolie sought to inflict harm” on him with the sale, invoking alleged connections between the firm’s owner Yuri Shefler and Russian President Vladimir Putin. But Shefler has long been an outspoken critic of Putin, and his Stoli Group drinks conglomerate is based in Latvia. Pitt and Jolie first got together after co-starring as married assassins in the 2005 film “Mr and Mrs Smith.” Pitt was married to Jennifer Aniston at the time. Jolie, who won a best-supporting actress Oscar for “Girl, Interrupted” in 2000, was previously married to actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton. — AFP