Revealed: Why Brad Pitt’s daughter waited four years to drop his name

Brad Pitt‘s daughter Shiloh waited four years to drop her father’s name — after a disagreement during a custody battle when she was only 14.

Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, whose mother is Angelina Jolie, filed paperwork to drop the Pitt name on Monday May 30, three days after she turned 18 — the earliest point at which she could do so.

The Mail revealed last week that she had hired (and paid for) her own lawyer to handle the matter.

A source close to the proceedings told me the move was ‘connected to the (alleged) abuse history’ by her father and also to ‘the violation of Shiloh’s victim’s rights’.

I am told that she blames her father for the legal moves which meant she did not get to testify about her wishes, regarding custody.

She also did not get to speak about what happened on that fateful flight in 2016, which led to the end of her parents’ marriage — although she wanted to.

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Under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act, federal crime victims have rights including: ‘The right not to be excluded from any such public court proceeding, unless the court, after receiving clear and convincing evidence, determines that testimony by the victim would be materially altered if the victim heard other testimony at that proceeding.’

The question of custody arrangements for the six Jolie-Pitt children — Pax, Maddox, Zahara, Shiloh, Knox and Vivienne — was decided during six months of hearings behind closed doors between December 2020 and May 2021.

Jolie petitioned to have the children testify, but was unsuccessful.

Judge John Oudekirk ruled that custody should be 50-50 and declined to hear evidence from the children, who had already undergone therapeutic evaluation, which was reported to the court.

The judgement was set aside later in 2021, after Jolie appealed on the grounds that the judge had a commercial link to one of Pitt’s attorneys.

A source says: ‘The name change goes back to the custody battle, and Shiloh’s belief that her rights as a victim were violated.

‘Shiloh believed she had the right, as a victim of crime, to testify — and was prevented from doing so.’

I’m told that there are no plans for her to pursue any further legal actions relating to her father. It’s not known whether younger siblings Knox and Vivienne might follow in her footsteps when they reach 18 in July 2026.

There were suggestions in supermarket magazines last month that Shiloh was planning to move in with her father as soon as she could.

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Other stories suggested that movie star Pitt was ‘hopeful’ of reconciling with his daughter, now that she is an adult.

However in truth there seems zero prospect of this — or a rapprochement with any of the children, following the notorious mid-air confrontation.

An FBI report into the incident, published in 2022, saw Jolie accuse Pitt of physical assault while the family were on a flight to California, which he has always denied.

Pitt was also accused of attacking one of the children on the plane, but was cleared of wrongdoing by the LAPD.

Son Pax previously said in an Instagram post that all four of the youngest children — including Shiloh — ‘tremble with fear’ in their father’s presence.

Since the split, the children — Maddox, 22, Pax, 20, Zahara, 19, Shiloh, 18, and Knox and Vivienne, 15 — have formed a tight gang of seven with their mother. Last year she called them ‘the closest people to me in my life’, adding: ‘We had to heal. There are things we needed to heal from.’

While Shiloh has repeatedly walked red carpets with Jolie, neither she nor her siblings have done the same for Pitt. ‘This is the result of textbook parental alienation, and it is a great sadness in his life,’ I was told. ‘There have been years and years of (Angelina) telling and retelling the same lies (about Brad), and the reality is that she has alienated the kids, and the reality is that it is upsetting to Brad. He cares about all of them. It is devastating.’

His spokesman said this week that he will not comment when it comes to his children.

Zahara, a student at Spelman College, Atlanta, no longer uses the name Pitt.

Vivienne has been working this spring with Angelina on a musical, The Outsiders, in New York and is credited as simply ‘Vivienne Jolie’ in the programme.

Maddox and Pax have not used the Pitt name for years.