Brad Pitt Slams Angelina Jolie's Court Filing Over Child Support as 'Effort to Manipulate Media'

Brad Pitt's legal team is slamming Angelina Jolie's latest court filing as 'a thinly-veiled effort to manipulate media coverage'

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Brad Pitt‘s legal team is taking action against Angelina Jolie‘s most recent court filing.

In a new brief filed to the Superior Court of the State of California on Wednesday, Pitt’s lawyer Lance Spiegel slams Jolie’s filing as “unnecessary” and “a thinly-veiled effort to manipulate media coverage.”

Spiegel’s filing also fires back at Jolie’s indication that Pitt had not been paying “meaningful” child support during their marriage and gives specific sums of how much he has contributed. Spiegel says Pitt “loaned” Jolie $8 million to help her purchase her current house and has contributed over $1.3 million “in bills for the benefit of [Jolie] and the minor children.”

In her latest court filing, Jolie alleges that Pitt “has paid no meaningful child support since separation” and says she intends to seek out “retroactive child support” from her ex. She also asks the court to “bifurcate” their marital status — a process that would mean they could dissolve the marriage and go back to being single before resolving other issues in the divorce.

A spokesperson for Jolie told PEOPLE that the aim the filing “is to provide closure to the marriage in a way that clears a path toward the next stage of their lives and allows her and Brad to recommit as devoted co-parents to their children.”

In his brief, Pitt’s lawyer says he approached Jolie’s attorney Laura Wasser earlier this month, relaying Pitt’s request to bifurcate the marriage — meaning he wanted to finalize the divorce proceedings before resolving other issues. Pitt’s lawyer says that while Wasser and her team responded, asking for the proceeding to not be filed for a week, Jolie’s team of several lawyers then filed their own motion a day later “to create the impression that she, not [Pitt], wanted to bifurcate.”‘

In the Pitt filing, Spiegel adds that the “issue can now be resolved” since neither party is opposed to it.

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Jolie, 43, and Pitt, 53, met in 2003 and wed in 2014 before they separated in Sept. 2016 citing irreconcilable differences. Custody of their six children — Maddox, 16, Pax, 14, Zahara, 13, Shiloh, 12, and 10-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox — has been an ongoing issue.