Brad Pitt’s petition to challenge the court’s ruling to disqualify the private judge in his ongoing custody battle with Angelina Jolie has been denied.
On Wednesday, the California Supreme Court shut down Pitt’s request to review the California appellate court’s ruling to block Judge John Ouderkirk from overseeing their custody dispute, the Associated Press reports.
“Ms. Jolie is focused on her family and pleased that her children’s wellbeing will not be guided by unethical behavior,” Jolie’s attorney, Robert Olson, told ET in a statement. “She welcomes the California Supreme Court’s decision to refuse review of the unanimous Court of Appeal decision.”
The statement continued, “As reinforced by California’s appellate courts, our judiciary prioritizes ethics and children’s best interests, and won’t tolerate judicial misconduct to reward the interests of a party. Ms. Jolie is glad for the family to now move forward cooperatively.”
A rep for Pitt told Page Six on Thursday, “The appeals court ruling was based on a technical procedural issue and the Supreme Court’s decision not to review that procedural issue does not change the extraordinary amount of factual evidence which led the trial judge—and the many experts who testified—to reach their clear conclusion about what is in the children’s best interests.
“We will continue to do everything that’s legally necessary based on the detailed findings of the independent experts.”
As Page Six previously reported, Pitt, 57, was given joint custody of the five minor children he shares with Jolie — Pax, 17, Zahara, 16, Shiloh, 15, and 13-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox — in a preliminary decision by Ouderkirk in May. Pitt and Jolie, 46, also share an adult son, Maddox, 20.
The “Fight Club” star filed a request to overturn the court’s decision to remove Ouderkirk from their case in July.
But in a big victory for Jolie, a California appeals court disqualified Ouderkirk, ruling that he didn’t sufficiently disclose business relationships with Pitt’s attorneys.
The move renders Ouderkirk’s joint custody decision effectively moot, meaning Jolie currently retains full-time custody of their kids with Pitt granted visitation rights.
In 2019, the judge ruled the pair legally single, but had separated the child custody issues.
Ouderkirk, who married the exes in 2014, declined to disqualify himself when Jolie asked him to in a filing in August. A lower court judge ruled that Jolie’s request for disqualification came too late, but her attorneys appealed.