Daily Times

Brad Pitt’s life couldn’t look any much more different right now from how it looked a year ago. To be sure, it’s been a circuitous journey from March to March. In March 2016, Angelina Jolie had just been inked in Cambodia with a new tattoo that symbolically bound her to her husband of almost two years. The biggest threat to his livelihood was the epic, “career-ending” prank George Clooney was cooking up; he had been outed as the runner-up to David Crosby in the quest to father Melissa Etheridge’s children 20 years ago; and Jennifer Garner had just thrown it way back in Vanity Fair, comparing her split from Ben Affleck to Pitt’s 2005 divorce from Jennifer Aniston.

Moreover, no one was all that interested, more than usual anyway, in Pitt’s whereabouts one year ago, figuring all was status quo for the busy father of six.

That’s a far cry from today, when we learned that the movie star has been holed up working dutifully on a sculpture at British artist Thomas Houseago’s studio in Los Angeles, sometimes for hours on end.

Reportedly while listening to sad songs, like any normal person would who might still be suffering the effects of a painful break-up.

But as we all know now, just a year ago life was about to become the opposite of normal for the Oscar-nominated actor.

No one was the wiser as Pitt went about work as usual, shooting the spy thriller ‘Allied’ with Marion Cotillard and Lizzie Caplan in England last April, fretting over US and global politics like a lot of the rest of the world, and posing for a cover shoot for The New York Times’ T Magazine that, in hindsight more than ever, co-starred his wedding ring front and centre.

The magazine landed on doorsteps on September 11. On September 19, Jolie filed for divorce.

And not only did she file for divorce. She asked for primary custody of their kids, which along with the split itself was the real jolt to those who thought of “Jolie-Pitt” as more than just a last name.

Within days, it turned out that the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services and the FBI were investigating Pitt over some sort of confrontation between him and son Maddox on a private jet flying from Europe to LA, and all of a sudden the curtain was pulled back on what was once assumed to be Brangelina’s blissful life.

As parents, at least, if not always with each other.

But all of a sudden Pitt-via his lawyer-had to start defending himself in court filings, as well as deal with the public embarrassment of more or less being called a questionable parent, and start to try to mend his relationship with the kids, particularly 15-year-old Maddox.

Jolie retreated to a rented home in Malibu with Maddox, Zahara, Shiloh, Pax, Knox and Vivienne, and Pitt stayed away. We were told that the actor, used to being a hands-on dad and “committed to giving them stability”, was “very upset” but hopeful that he and Jolie would work out their custody issues soon.

Pitt ended up skipping what would have been a hasty return to the spotlight, the September 28 premiere of the documentary ‘Voyage of Time’, which he narrated.

Meanwhile, he had chosen to ignore speculation that he and Marion Cotillard had a fling while shooting ‘Allied’, but the French actress, pregnant at the time with her and Guillaume Canet’s second child together, felt compelled to explicitly remove herself from the narrative. “To all the media and the haters who are quick to pass judgment, I sincerely wish you a swift recovery,” she wrote on Instagram. “Finally, I do very much wish that Angelina and Brad, both whom I deeply respect, will find peace in this very tumultuous moment.”

Though the authorities would eventually determine that there was no evidence of wrongdoing by Pitt on that plane, Jolie retained temporary sole custody of the kids, with Pitt granted monitored visitation with a therapist. He and Jolie also agreed to individual and family counselling sessions. Pitt had volunteered to submit to drug and alcohol testing, but the court didn’t require it. Pitt only saw the kids twice-for a total of about four hours-in the month-long span after Jolie filed for divorce. The FBI was still in “fact-finding mode” at the time, NBC News reported.