As the world recovers from the news that Angelina Jolie is divorcing Brad Pitt, the former Hollywood power couple must now prepare for their inevitable legal battle. But because of their “unusual” relationship, dividing up their assets may be tricky.
While Jolie and Pitt were together for over a decade, they were only married for about two years, and it’s that period of time that will be subject to a split.
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“So there are a couple of unusual things about this relationship. Number one is they were together much longer than they were married,” CNBC wealth editor Robert Frank said. “They’ve only been married for two years so that means only the property and the income that they earned during those two years will be subject to a split—so called marital property or communal property.”
One of the biggest factors that will determine how their assets are divided is whether they had a pre-nup at the beginning of their marriage.
“Anything that they bought during their two-year marriage, anything that they earned during their two-year marriage would be subject to negotiation,” Frank said. “But because both of them were really rich going into this marriage and that two-year period was not hugely active for either of them in terms of money earned or in terms of real estate purchased, it’s unlikely there’s going to be a big battle over a lot of money because their marriage itself and the amount of money gained during that marriage was fairly small.”
The internet has been abuzz since news first broke that Jolie and Pitt were getting divorced, with the hashtag #BrexPitt naturally taking over Twitter.
Pitt released an official statement shortly after the world learned of their predicament, saying that while he’s “very saddened by this,” he’s keeping his focus on “the well-being of our kids.”
It was later discovered that Pitt may have been cheating on Jolie with actress Marion Cotillard, news that learned after Jolie hired a private investigator to track Pitt’s moves.
Jolie’s father, Jon Voight, reacted to news of the divorce by saying he “doesn’t know much yet,” but plans on “speaking to her and the kids very soon.”
Pitt, on the other hand, reacted by claiming Jolie’s actions had “unleashed hell’ and put his children in danger.
Whether their split will impact their careers remains to be seen, but Forbes’ Natalie Robehmed says it’s certainly a possibility.
“I mean many celebrities are able to divorce and work successfully in Hollywood,” she explained to E! News. “I can only think of practical things that might impact it, if they spend a lot of time on divorce proceedings or some other logistical reasons why they can’t physically work, that may impact it.”
[ H/T E! Online ]
