The price you have to pay, we guess.
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are suspected to have spent over $1 million each so far during their divorce and custody battle! Already four years into a split that continues to be as tense as ever, a divorce attorney, Kelly Chang Rickert, spoke to DailyMail.com on Tuesday to spill all about what she thinks is happening behind-the-scenes of Hollywood’s “most expensive divorce case.”
After cutting ties with the Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood actor in 2016, the mom of six has battled it out on the legal front to attempt to win full custody of their five underage children. But given the fact that the youngest twins, Knox and Vivienne, are just 12 years old, Kelly believes Angelina is selling her fortunes (such as a Winston Churchill painting which went for $11.2M earlier this month) to gain extra funds to continue the battle for another six years!
Related: Brad & His GF Break Up As Angelina Custody Battle Gets More Vicious!
Discussing why she assumes “Angelina and Brad have already spent over $1 million each” in what has become “one of the longest celebrity cases we’ve ever seen,” Kelly shared:
“They are both employing very reputable attorneys and Angelina has already gone through several. Hourly rates may range from between $1,000 to $1,500 and I would estimate that these lawyers may be billing 40 or 50 hours a week at times. They have also hired a private judge who probably bills around $900 to $1,000 an hour, so he is probably costing $10,000 a day. If they used him for a five-day trial, he would probably take $50,000 up front and another $10,000 to review paperwork beforehand. I would say they’ve paid the judge himself probably close to half a million dollars between them.”
WOW!! While many believed Angie might have sold Churchill’s painting to get it out of the house (since it was probably a gift from her ex-lover), the attorney disagreed:
“I actually think she sold it to pay more attorney’s fees, that’s just my pessimistic divorce lawyer point of view. I wouldn’t be surprised that that’s what it’s for, but it could be for other things too.”
On that note, Rickert definitely thinks the actress is gonna need more money given how committed she is to a victorious outcome.
“Angelina seems to think she can get sole custody of the kids, but that is just not the case. She can keep paying millions and millions and millions but as long as Brad wants custody and fights for it, she’s going to have to share.”
Sadly, even after all these contentious years and money down the drain, the twins could reach legal adult age and their parents may not know how to stop. On witnessing many “nasty” divorce cases in the past, it was clear this attorney knows there’s a real downsize to spouses with loads of extra cash. She elaborated:
“I’ve definitely had cases go on and on and on until the kids are adults. Very nasty ones keep going and Angelina changing attorneys is an indication that she needs to get her own way and isn’t willing to give up. It’s almost worse when people have the money because they’ll just keep fighting.”
Related: Angelina Has ‘Proof’ Of Alleged Domestic Violence Against Brad Pitt!
Adding:
“Other people run out of money but Angelina has the means to keep paying for lawyers.”
Look, we get that these high profile celebs are doing everything in their power to get what they want from this split and keep some amount of privacy for their fam by paying up for better attorneys, etc. But it’s not just necessary factors of a legal case that has the Maleficent lead shelling out the big bucks. Last August, when Brad announced he had 21 witnesses lined up to speak in a child custody trial, the 45-year-old fired back with seven names on her side, five of whom were experts. Experts who, given their track record and knowledge, require even more money to do their job than a regular witness! Kelly explained:
“It depends on the type of expert but for mental health experts or accountants, I would expect them to be getting around $500 an hour. When you have experts that are in the mental health profession to evaluate custody it can cost $100,000 for the work done by one expert alone. In this case there are several children and the marriage lasted several years so I wouldn’t be surprised if in total legal fees were in excess of $1 million.”
YIKES! This honestly just makes us so sad for the kids stuck between these fighting parents. With the state of their $67M French castle still in the mist of arguments as well, it’s clear this war is far from over. Thoughts, Perezcious readers? Do U think Brangelina will ever come to a consensus OR has this battle just become commonplace for them?? Let us know in the comments (below)!
[Image via Fayes Vision/WENN]
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