Brad Pitt Says He’s the Victim of Parental Alienation. Let’s Talk About It
Someone keeps briefing the press that Pitt is the victim of parental alienation, but parental alienation isn’t real
This post contains graphic descriptions of physical violence and child sexual abuse
For the past year or so, I’ve been reading a lot about family courts in the United Kingdom. Frankly, it’s been horrible. I’ve filled my head with many sad things over the years, but finding out more about what happens in family court is one thing that I think has made my life worse. I wish I’d never learned the things I have. I have a law degree that I’m not using, I got so heated about what I’ve learned that I even considered training as a lawyer. I probably won’t — it would be too depressing.
One of the worst things I’ve learned is everything surrounding the concept of parental alienation. Generally, it refers to the concept of one parent brainwashing children into not liking the other parent, or brainwashing the child to make false claims of sexual or physical abuse. It can be used as a trump card to any allegation, and if a child says that they’ve been molested or abused, there’s an easy way out for the offending parent: claim parental alienation.
Alleging parental alienation is a very well-accepted concept in U.K. family courts, and it’s often in conjunction with another terrible phenomenon: the use of unqualified and unregulated experts. Any single person, like you or me, could designate themselves as a “parental alienation expert” and testify in court. It’s a lucrative gig, too. You give someone upwards of £10,000 and tell them to “analyse” your family situation. The child says they’ve been molested? Parental alienation, clearly. The mother says she was abused in the relationship? Parental alienation. The mother left him after she found child porn on his computer? Oh, absolutely textbook parental alienation. Let’s give him full custody of the kids!
You may think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. A BBC report found that children had been put into the care of abusive parents when they alleged parental alienation. The report cites a case where the mother died after her kids were taken from her and put in the care of the man she left because she found out he’d previously gone to prison for raping a child. He was given full custody.
Are there cases where a parent may try to turn the child against the other parent? Sure, but I would argue they are probably quite rare. The use of parental alienation allegations as a tool of abusers is, however, well-documented. A report by the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls calls it a “pseudo-concept” that has been “widely used to negate allegations of domestic and sexual abuse within family court systems on a global scale.” The report concludes by recommending that states legislate against the use of parental alienation claims in family law cases and prohibit the use of unregulated experts.
Jess Phillips, the Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence, has discussed the use of parental alienation allegations in UK courts:
The situation is so poor at the moment in the courts that we have completely unregulated people giving evidence on behalf of abusers and the courts, and the government feels completely comfortable about it.
I’ve met women who have been beaten, raped and imprisoned and whose abusers got access to their children — sometimes full custody — by making women so scared to speak up in case these ‘experts’ accused her of ‘alienating’ behaviour. Put simply, children are unsafe if the status quo continues.
Recently, there have been repeated allegations in the press accusing Angelina Jolie of parental alienation against Brad Pitt. In a recent Us Weekly article, an “inside source” called it “textbook parental alienation.” In November 2023, a “friend” told the Daily Mail that what’s happening to Pitt is a “perfect example of parental alienation — I mean this is a textbook demonstration of parental alienation.” Pitt’s friend briefed the Daily Mail, saying “There have been years and years of her telling and retelling the same poisonous things about him and the reality is that she has alienated the kids”.
Since the “sources close to Brad” keep briefing that what Angelina is doing is “textbook parental alienation,” let’s talk a little bit about those textbooks! Because I have read parts of the book from which the concept of parental alienation hails — if this is such a textbook example, let me share with you what the textbook says.
The concept of parental alienation, or “parental alienation syndrome”, comes from a psychologist called Dr. Richard Gardner. He is the author of self-published books called Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited and True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse and The Parental Alienation Syndrome and the Differentiation Between Fabricated and Genuine Child Sex Abuse.
I started reading the first book when I first became aware of the issues with family courts and Dr. Gardner’s impact on it, but I stopped reading because it made me feel sick and, quite frankly, convinced that anyone who reads it to affirm their views about parent-child relationships or child sexual abuse should be put on some sort of a watch list. But for the sake of Brad, I’ll dive back in.
I’ll be going into detail on his views, but here’s a quick summary: Dr. Gardner believes that incest is common, especially between a father and a daughter. Simultaneously, though, he believes that almost all (>90%) claims of child molestation and rape that are heard in court are false — very curious! He believes that they’re the effort of one parent to get rid of a “hated spouse”. However, he also alleges that there is an evolutionary purpose to parents wanting to rape their kids, and that there is inherently nothing wrong with it — the only thing that makes rape and incest harmful to a child is societal hysteria about how it’s “bad”.
If you don’t want to read more about his specific views, skip the following section and start reading after the break.
In the introduction to Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited and True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse, Richard A. Gardner says that “most, if not all” talk about child sex abuse is a hoax invented by the media. He says that he has 30 years of experience in forensic psychiatry, and he has spent countless hours testifying as an expert in court. As a result, he has come to the conclusion that sex abuse claims are a hoax invented by vindictive parents. He says that “Sex abuse allegations that arise in the intrafamilial situation have a high likelihood of being valid. Incest is probably quite common,” but in contrast, “sex abuse allegations made in the context of child custody disputes (especially those that are litigated viciously) have a high likelihood of being false.”
He says that abuse allegations are a “very effective method of wreaking vengeance on a hated spouse” and “it is a tempting weapon to use in a bitter child custody dispute”. He then goes into semantics about definitions of paedophilia and calls them “mind-boggling,” saying that how paedophilia is judged is often reliant on “the emotions of the judge and jury”.
After the introductory chapter, the book becomes genuinely difficult to read (“A little girl rubs her vulva and clitoris and then enjoys smelling the vaginal secretions on her fingers”; “A three-year-old girl and her four-year-old brother are taking a shower with their father. In the course of the frolicking, each child might entertain a transient fantasy of putting the father’s penis in his (her) mouth”, etc.) arguing that children exhibit “normal” sexual behaviour, and “each child is likely to have a “favorite” list of sexual activities”. He says that thinking that children’s sexual “manifestations” are proof of sexual abuse “have caused many truly innocent individuals an enormous amount of harm, even to the point of long prison sentences.”
In the next chapter, he argues against educating children about sexual abuse because it makes children too “suspicious” of the adults around them, saying that people who teach children about sexual abuse have a “hidden agenda”: they are “overly zealous, even to the point of fanaticism”.
He then discusses his bread-and-butter, custody disputes. He says that a mother’s allegation of child sex abuse is “a very powerful weapon. It brought about quick action by the courts as well as immediate removal of a hated husband”. He says that all people are paedophiles (“I believe that all of us have some pedophilia within us”) and argues that believing a child sex abuse allegation probably means you’re a paedophile, but you just don’t know it. By believing a child when they say they’ve been abused, he says:
[O]ne is basically saying, “I would like him (her) to do that to me” … Most people are too guilt ridden over their pedophilic impulses to allow these fantasies direct entry into conscious awareness: thus, the formation of the vicarious gratification mode of release.
He then says that “People with excessive guilt or shame over their pedophilic impulses may project their own desires onto another” and that’s why the people who accuse others of child molestation are the real paedophiles. Ergo, if you go to court and say you believe the child has been sexually abused by her father, he’s not a paedophile, but you probably are.
He then claims that if a girl is sexually abused by her father, it might secretly be the mother’s fault:
A mother who is sexually inhibited may view sexual encounters with loathing. Consciously or unconsciously she facilitates the father’s turning his sexual attentions to “get him off her back” (or “front” as the case may be). In this way, she avoids involving herself in the “disgusting” activities and yet allows “the beast” to gratify his primitive needs and keep him “tamed” and out of “trouble” (being involvement with other women).
Therefore, sometimes child sex abuse is the mother’s fault — she has unconsciously facilitated the child getting raped. Culpability, once again, lies anywhere else than on the child molester.
That was as much as I could stomach from that book, and that was only the first 36 pages. Tell me, did you read that and think “Boy, what an expert. His textbook is truly a treasure trove of information!” or, like me, did you think that that is the unhinged musings of a disturbed man? I’m not even going into views he has expressed in other books or papers — I’ll save you from his more controversial thoughts.
The fact that anything out of this man’s pen is taken as gospel anywhere in family courts is revolting, as is the fact that his parental alienation “theory” has taken off. This is how he explains it in his book:
Although the mothers in these situations may have a variety of motivations for programming their children against their fathers, the most common one relates to the old saying, ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’
In Dr. Gardner’s view, incest is common and daughters especially get raped by fathers often. And yet, if a mother accuses a father of raping their child, she’s probably just bitter and vindictive. And even if it’s true — which it apparently never is if the allegation is said in court — it might be the mother’s fault. And if it isn’t, well, there’s nothing wrong with it per se.
To me, Brad Pitt referring to Dr. Gardner’s textbooks is revolting. Brad Pitt lending credence to his unfounded and pseudoscientific theories is nothing short of irresponsible and sad. Parental alienation has become much more of a buzzword following his media campaign, which has now been going on since at least November 2023 — articles with headlines like “Fans Slam Angelina Jolie For ‘Brainwashing’ Her Children” that cite Pitt’s “insider” claims of parental alienation do nothing more than bring this garbage further into public consciousness.
And yet, I think there is a lesson in all of this.
What’s happening to Brad Pitt isn’t “a textbook demonstration of parental alienation”, as his friends and employees have claimed in the press. Instead, what Brad Pitt is doing is a textbook example of “invoking parental alienation as an extension of domestic violence”, as per the aforementioned UN Report.
In 2016, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and their children were on a private plane. What happened next is the subject of an FBI report, as someone on the plane who witnessed it (presumably the flight attendants or other staff) tipped off the FBI. There was also a lawsuit on the matter. As a result, here’s what we know about what Brad Pitt did on the plane:
Pitt’s aggressive behavior started even before the family got to the airport, with Pitt having a confrontation with one of the children. After the flight took off, Jolie approached Pitt and asked him what was wrong,” the filing says. “Pitt accused her of being too deferential to the children and verbally attacked her.”
Later, it says, “He pulled her into the bathroom and began yelling at her. Pitt grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her, and then grabbed her shoulders and shook her again before pushing her into the bathroom wall.”
One of the children, who were between 8 and 15 years old at the time, verbally defended Jolie, the countersuit says, and Pitt lashed out.
“Pitt lunged at his own child and Jolie grabbed him from behind to stop him. To get Jolie off his back, Pitt threw himself backwards into the airplane’s seats injuring Jolie’s back and elbow,” the filing says. “The children rushed in and all bravely tried to protect each other. Before it was over, Pitt choked one of the children and struck another in the face.
The document says he subsequently poured beer on Jolie and poured beer and red wine on the children.
Because Brad Pitt is conducting what to me looks like litigation abuse, we also have further information from court documents where Angelina Jolie said that Brad Pitt had been physically abusive towards her in the past, but the plane incident was the first time he attacked the children. Jolie filed for divorce five days later and never looked back.
And neither did the kids. Many of them have dropped the surname Pitt and go by Jolie only, instead of Jolie-Pitt. One of the children, Shiloh Jolie, hired a lawyer and filed to change her name on her 18th birthday — reportedly, the decision is to do with the domestic abuse, but she’s also angry that Pitt blocked her from testifying in custody hearings. In fact, none of the kids were allowed to testify about which parent they’d like to be around. He was awarded joint custody by a judge who even ordered Angelina Jolie to “arrange a phone call with the kids and their doctors “to explain that the court has determined that each of them is safe with their father.” When it comes to domestic violence, family courts are archaic.
Despite this, Pitt’s children aren’t afraid to make their feelings known about what kind of man he is. One of his children posted this jolly Father’s Day message, along with a photo of Brad Pitt:
Happy Father’s Day to this world class asshole!! You time and time again prove yourself to be a terrible and despicable person. You have no consideration or empathy toward your four youngest children who tremble in fear when in your presence. You will never understand the damage you have done to my family because you are incapable of doing so. You have made the lives of those closest to me a constant hell. You may tell yourself and the world whatever you want, but the truth will come to light someday. So, Happy Father’s Day, you fucking awful human being!!!
To Brad Pitt, this is probably emblematic of how Angelina Jolie has turned the children against him. But to people like me, this seems to be a very normal reaction to seeing your father beat up your mother and punch and strangle your siblings in a drunken rage. But Pitt has learned from Dr. Gardner: it’s never a consequence of your own actions — you can always blame the mother instead.
If Brad Pitt ever wants a relationship with his children, I’d assume that the sensible thing to do would not be continuously abusing their mother by burying her in baseless lawsuits and going to every single publication that will listen to cry about how “She’s turned the weans [kids] against us!” and instead, just leave them alone. The articles about him and his relationship with his children are relentless, constantly giving us some variation of “Brad knows Angelina has manipulated them but he just really loves his children!” Brad, shut the fuck up. If you loved your children, you’d stop.
Parental alienation is like Brad Pitt’s acting in Friends: maybe it’s convincing to some, but if it wasn’t Brad Pitt, you’d think it’s garbage. And parental alienation isn’t real. It’s hogwash concocted by someone who has, at the very least, lenient views about the permissibility of child abuse in parent-child relationships. Claiming that this is a “textbook example” of parental alienation is nonsense — there is no textbook, there are only self-published rambling books from a man whose worldviews are questionable at best and criminal at worst.
Continued litigation against his children’s mother combined with the incessant leaks and briefs to the press will only sever their relationship further, and Brad Pitt’s claims of parental alienation are trash, just like every other theory that Richard Gardner invented. Much like Gardner’s other fans, Pitt seems allergic to the thought that his actions might have consequences, and it’s always someone else’s fault instead. It might be time for him to take a good, hard look in the mirror.
It’s long overdue, but Brad Pitt should do the right thing: just shut the fuck up and stop the leaking. Stop whanging on about Angelina. The kids are all grown up now, capable of making their own decisions — if they wanted to speak to him, they would. But because they don’t, it looks like he’s using the tabloids to harass his own children. As readers, we should make sure we don’t fall for it, and take all future claims of “parental alienation” with a hefty grain of salt — it’s nothing more than pseudoscientific nonsense.
