Angelina Jolie’s tactics may be the work of new divorce lawyers

WHILE Angelina Jolie has denied ditching her powerful divorce lawyer Laura Wasser, her ugly divorce from Brad Pitt has taken a fiery new turn with the Maleficent actress reportedly beefing up her legal team.

Jolie’s filing this past week in Los Angeles Superior Court accused Pitt of being an alleged “deadbeat dad,” having paid “no meaningful child support since separation” in 2016.

Jolie “is asking Brad to pay 50 per cent of the children’s expenses,” claiming he “has not” paid his share, the New York Post reported.

Pitt fired back in legal papers that he had in fact loaned Jolie $8 million to buy her new home and paid out $1.3 million in bills for her and their kids.

Then a new lawyer for Jolie, Samantha Bley DeJean, shot back in a statement, saying: “A loan is not … child support, and to represent it as such is misleading and inaccurate.”

Jolie’s aggressive filing states Joseph Mannis of top Beverly Hills family law firm LA Hersh Mannis LLP is now also on her team.

His partners Neal Hersh and Judy Bogen (who now has her own firm) famously repped Kim Basinger in her bruising divorce from Alec Baldwin — which was rocked by the sensational leak of the “rude, thoughtless little pig” voicemail he left in 2007 for his then 11-year-old daughter, Ireland.

Baldwin had accused Basinger and her lawyers of leaking the tape, which they denied.

Legal sources speculated — after a long period of relative peace between Jolie and Pitt as they put their public divorce on hold to discuss custody of their six children in front of a private judge — that Wasser may not have been on-board with Jolie’s decision to light a match under the proceedings.

A source said: “So Jolie hired other lawyers who would attack Brad. This strategy doesn’t make sense. If Jolie went ahead, she must reveal her financial records.”

Other sources close to Jolie have explained new “experts” were brought on to signal a “new phase” in the divorce.

Jolie lawyers Wasser, DeJean, Mannis and Hersh didn’t respond to requests for comment. Reps for Pitt declined to comment.