Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have been married for two years, but it took eight years from the time they announced their divorce to finally reach a deal. Why did it take four times longer to settle the marriage than the marriage itself?
Part of the answer is that it’s a particularly messy divorce, complicated by bitter litigation involving their children and the French vineyard they bought together.
Some have yet to be resolved in what Jolie’s attorney called a “long-running process.”
The celebrity’s lawyer, Chris Melcher, told BBC News that the divorce took an unusually long time to settle.
“It’s much longer than any divorce we normally see,” he said.
“But initially they had a custody battle and then it all came down to the winery they own together, and that’s been at the center of their fight for the last few years.”
Many celebrities want a quick divorce and move on, Melcher explained.
“Often, in a case of this magnitude, we can settle it within six months, a year at the most. Eight years is really a sign that something bigger is going on.
“It’s the inability to let go and the desire to really hurt another.”
Kate Daly, co-founder of online divorce company Amicable, told the BBC that such a case was very different from a normal divorce.
“It’s an industry … (they can afford) a lot of expensive lawyers,” she said. “Most people couldn’t afford for it to take eight years. It’s an industry and it’s a bad example – we need to distance (normal) people from this kind of narrative.”
