FBI says it's evaluating abuse allegations against Brad Pitt

The FBI announced Thursday that it is looking into an allegation of child abuse by actor Brad Pitt aboard a charter flight from France.

Reports swirled Thursday that Pitt, whose wife Angelina Jolie recently filed for divorce, was under investigation for allegedly abusing one or more of their children.

TMZ reported Thursday morning that Pitt was under investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services "for allegedly getting verbally abusive and physical with his children, and that's what triggered the divorce.''

According to TMZ's Gary Trock, the plane made a landing in Minnesota, and after landing, Pitt was reportedly ranting, got onto the tarmac and tried to get into a fuel truck.

TMZ also reports someone who saw what was going on put an anonymous call into the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS).

However, an LAPD spokeswoman said Thursday the department was not investigating Pitt and a spokesman for the DCFS said he could not confirm or deny that the agency was involved in any investigation, citing confidentiality laws.

Whether the allegations are true or not, celebrity attorney Bobby Samini says Pitt and Jolie have much to lose if the rhetoric isn't reigned in.

"I think the role of the lawyers will have to be to get their clients off the ledge and make them understand how damaging this is going to be going forward for their careers, for their personal lives, their families and get them back on track," Samini said. "To me, going down the path of pointing your missiles at each other when they are as powerful as they are is mutually assured destruction."

As for Trock, he's "completely surprised."

"We've just seen them as the public looking in, but they've always been like the perfect family. Anything I've ever seen of Brad is a doting and loving father so, these are allegations that fly in the face of what we thought was going on," he said.

Pitt and Jolie Pitt -- known as "Brangelina" -- were together for 12 years but only wed in August 2014. They married privately at their French chateau in the Provence hamlet of Correns with their children serving as ring bearers and throwing flower petals. They announced the ceremony days later.

Their six children include 15-year-old Maddox, 12-year-old Pax, 11-year-old Zahara, 10-year-old Shiloh, and 8-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne.

This is the second marriage for Pitt, 52, who previously wed Jennifer Aniston. It's the third for Jolie Pitt, 41, who was previously married to Billy Bob Thornton and Jonny Lee Miller.

In 2006, they formed the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, to which they funneled many of the millions they made selling personal pictures to celebrity magazines.

In addition to their philanthropy, much of their off-screen public image has been about their role as parents.

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