Watch NZH Focus: Angelina Jolie files for divorce from Brad Pitt. Here's a timeline of their relationship.
Mellisa Etheridge has opened up about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's bitter divorce battle, slamming the Maleficent actress and her legal team for the way she's handled the split.
The veteran rocker said she was "heartbroken" for Pitt and called the accusations that he verbally and physically assaulted his children "completely unfounded."
"It breaks my heart that anyone would take something as personal as your marriage and your relationship and your rights to your children and do it as purposefully as I see it's being done," Etheridge told Andy Cohen on his SiriusXM radio show.
Melissa Etheridge is a longtime friend of Brad Pidd and actually sang at his wedding to Jennifer Aniston in 2000. Photo / Taupo & Turangi Weekender
The 55-year-old musician is a longtime friend of the Moneyball actor and actually sang at his wedding to Jennifer Aniston in 2000. At one point she was considering using Pitt as a sperm donor.
Etheridge told the radio host that she'd lost contact with Pitt, 52, over the years and said, "I really hope that he reaches back out," adding, "there are a lot of us who haven't seen him in 10 years, it was hard then. We all lost a friend."
She then took aim at Jolie, 41, claiming that she witnessed first-hand her "nasty" behaviour when she started up a relationship with Billy Bob Thornton, who was engaged to actress Laura Dern at the time.
"I was around when Angelina was not doing nice things with Billy Bob to Laura Dern. I went through that on a personal level, and then to know the side of Jennifer and Brad ...
"I helped Laura move out of her house with Billy Bob - I like broke into their home to get their stuff out because it was so nasty," she revealed.
Angelina Jolie with her ex husband Billy Bob Thornton in 2001. Photo / AP
Etheridge, who went through her own ugly custody battle with her ex Tammy Lynn Michaels in 2010, compared Jolie and Pitt's public split to her own situation.
"There's a way to be. I've gone through family courts," Etheridge said. "I've been twice around this block, and I know it really well, and I know when there's some forethought to just how mean [you can be] and just how you're going to put disinformation out there first."
This isn't the first time the singer has criticised the mother-of-six. In 2013, shortly after Jolie revealed she had undergone a preventive double mastectomy, Etheridge - a breast cancer survivor - commented, "I have to say I feel a little differently. I have that gene mutation too, and it's not something I would believe in for myself. I wouldn't call it the brave choice. I actually think it's the most fearful choice you can make when confronting anything with cancer."
Melissa Etheridge says that she'd lost contact with Pitt Brad Pitt over the years and she really hopes that he reaches back out. Photo / Supplied
Jolie shocked the world last month when she filed for divorce from Pitt, requesting full physical custody of the couple's six children, Maddox, 15, Pax, 12, Zahara, 11, Shiloh, 10, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 8.
Reports claim Pitt got verbal with the couple's eldest son, Maddox, on a plane in a drunken tirade. The day afterwards, Jolie filed the paperwork.
"Angelina did what she felt she needed to do," a source close to the Tomb Raider actress told People at the time.
The estranged couple have reached a temporary three-week agreement that will allow Pitt to visit with his children. This includes therapy and drug and alcohol tests, Us Weekly reports. Jolie will temporarily get full physical custody of the kids.
Pitt is reportedly "still totally crushed" two weeks after Jolie filed for divorce and demanded custody of their children.
"He can't believe this is what his life has become, and he's in bad shape, but the kids are the only thing he's hanging onto," a source told Us Weekly.
"He's been leaning heavily on his family and speaks to his parents and close friends and his manager constantly. His mum has been talking to him constantly."
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in a scene from the film Mr and Mrs Smith.
Pitt and Jolie were together for 12 years, and married for two, after meeting on the set of 2005 movie, Mr & Mrs Smith.
Etheridge has two children, Bailey and Beckett with ex Julie Cypher and twins with Tammy Lynn Michaels, Jonnie Rose and Miller Steven.
She is currently married to long-time friend and Nurse Jackie writer Linda Wallem.
