Reality check. Brad Pitt is “still totally crushed” from the series of events that have unfolded since his estranged wife, Angelina Jolie, filed for divorce after two years of marriage and 12 years together on September 19.
“He can’t believe this is what his life has become, and he’s in bad shape, but the kids are the only thing he’s hanging onto,” a source tells Us of the 52-year-old Moneyball actor. “He’s been leaning heavily on his family and speaks to his parents and close friends and his manager constantly. His mom has been talking to him constantly.”
On Friday, September 30, news broke that Pitt and Jolie, 41, had reached a temporary arrangement that extends to October 20 and will allow the actor to see the couple’s six children — Maddox, 15, Pax, 12, Zahara, 11, Shiloh, 10, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 8. While both parents have joint legal custody, they agreed that the children will remain with Jolie for the time being and his first visit with the children after weeks apart would be supervised by a therapist.
A second source tells Us that both parents will receive individual counseling, and they will also attend counseling sessions as a family with the children. Pitt will additionally undergo voluntary, random drug and alcohol testing .
“He will cooperate in whatever way he can,” the first source adds. “He loves those kids more than anything.”
Divorce attorney Hossein Berenji, who is not working with the couple, tells Us that “for Angelina’s purposes, temporarily at least, this does the trick for her to make sure the children are safe while seeing Brad and possibly have Brad take some responsibility for maybe certain behaviors that he’s displayed or certain characteristics.”
Pitt will also benefit from the process — amid an investigation by Children’s and Family Services after an incident involving the family on a private jet — Berenji added, noting that “for him, the best way to vindicate himself might be to put himself through this process even through there might be a stigma attached to it.”
“It might actually just be a way to deal with this and put down all these rumors in a very short, fast, quick period of time that will not involve a whole huge scandal where the kids and their lives and their past and everything is dragged through public media,” Berenji continued. “So there is a benefit I can see to both sides, and I can see why both sides might be willing to go through this process and get this done.”
In September, shortly after Jolie’s filing went public, a source told Us that Pitt was “beside himself and had been crying.”
“Angelina filed the court papers a minute before the courts closed on Monday night,” the insider explained of the Maleficent star’s tactic in the timing of her filing. “He didn’t have a lawyer or anything. She had threatened divorce in the past but he did not think she would file this time.”
“Angelina Jolie Pitt has filed for dissolution of the marriage,” Jolie’s rep said in a statement to Us Tuesday, September 20. “This decision was made for the health of the family. She will not be commenting at this time, and asks that the family be given their privacy during this difficult time.”
