For Hollywood actor Brad Pitt, it was like a stab to the heart. Shortly before Christmas, he hugged his six children in turn under the watchful eye of a court-appointed supervisor and bade them an emotional farewell. It was the conclusion of only his third paternal visit since the highly publicised split from his wife Angelina Jolie last September.

Pitt may be widely regarded as one of the biggest Hollywood stars of his generation, but like many other fathers embroiled in bitter custody battles, he was only allowed to give his children their Christmas presents under strict supervision.

And for a man still struggling to come to terms with life away from Angelina and their brood, the meeting seemed to be over in minutes.

'This has been the worst holiday season of my life,' Brad told one of his closest friends

He feels betrayed by the woman he still loves

As his children – Maddox, 15, Pax, 12, Zahara, 11, Shiloh, ten, and eight-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne, – filed silently away to be ferried back to their mother in the former family home overlooking Hollywood, Pitt broke down in tears.

Small wonder that he subsequently told one of his closest friends: ‘This has been the worst holiday season of my life.’

As the friend, speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday, explains: ‘Brad’s anguish is palpable right now. He desperately misses having his kids with him at Christmas and New Year. These supervised visits are sheer hell on him. He’s broken down in tears so many times – he’s not ashamed to cry any more.

A friend of Brad's told Mail On Sunday he was blindsided by the divorce and misses Angelina

‘Brad is like a broken man. He feels betrayed by a woman whom he says he still loves. He misses her despite everything that has happened between them.

‘He was blindsided by their divorce – he still believes Angelina made an impulsive decision and can’t figure out how to reverse it and save face.

‘He vacillates between being furious with her and longing for her. He thumbs through scrapbooks of photos of better times and wonders how it all went wrong. He calls her but she doesn’t return the calls. He sends gifts as peace offerings but she sends them back.

‘He’s learned to stay away from the internet rather than risk reading about his situation.’

He reportedly met five of his children again in Los Angeles on Christmas Day – Maddox didn’t want to see him.

Why has she allowed it to get so ugly

As Pitt, 52, goes into the New Year, people who know him best say he is determined to ‘get his kids back, no matter what it takes, what humiliating hoops the legal system makes him jump next’.

As Pitt goes into the New Year, people who know him say he is determined to get his kids back

ANGELINA IS BRANDED A 'MALEVOLENT' MUM Fathers 4 Justice, a campaign group, made this post featuring Angelina Jolie

Campaign group Fathers 4 Justice has sought to take advantage of the custody battle between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie by mounting a publicity campaign accusing the actress of lying. The group, whose members have previously climbed Buckingham Palace and thrown flour bombs in the Commons, has hired several mobile billboards featuring a mocked-up movie poster ‘starring’ Miss Jolie, and is displaying them at key Hollywood sites. The poster is titled Malevolent – a play on the title of her 2014 fantasy film Maleficent – and features the tagline: ‘Every father’s worst nightmare’. The move comes after Angelina was granted custody of the couple’s children while divorce proceedings continue. Fathers 4 Justice founder Matt O’Connor said the group hoped the campaign would ‘raise awareness about the plight of loving dads like Brad Pitt, who are being excluded from their children’s lives, and highlight the use of false allegations by some mothers to maliciously restrict dads’ access to their kids. ‘It is disappointing that Jolie, a UNHCR Special Envoy and humanitarian with a proclaimed love of children, would set such a poor example to other mothers. Children deserve the best of their parents, not the worst.’ Advertisement

Brad and Angelina Hollywood’s ultimate power couple throughout their 12-year relationship

Though the Pitts are scheduled to appear before a judge this month, it’s likely to be many months before there’s any resolution to their situation. Brad’s anguish is set to continue long into 2017 – and he still can’t work out how he got here.

Brad and Angelina were feted as Hollywood’s ultimate power couple throughout their 12-year relationship. Then in September, she unexpectedly filed for divorce and his world spiralled out of control.

Details began to leak out about an altercation on a private plane in which Pitt allegedly verbally and physically abused son Maddox.

There were rumours of an affair between Pitt and French actress Marion Cotillard – which Cotillard vehemently denied – and dark mutterings of drug and alcohol abuse.

Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard starred in the film Allied together, sparking affair rumours

Marion Cottilard, 41, is married to actor Guillaume Canet and vehemently denied the rumours

The abuse allegations led to brief investigations by the FBI and social services, which both cleared Pitt of wrongdoing. Meanwhile, he has had to submit to random drug tests in order to be allowed supervised visits to his children.

It may appear to be just another Hollywood power struggle, with claim and counterclaim played out in the public eye, but the truth is somewhat different. Despite the torrent of allegations, there has been near-silence from Pitt, who, according to his friends, spends his days picking over the small domestic details he believes might have contributed to the marriage breakdown.

To make matters worse, Angelina has not talked to him since September – all communications have been through lawyers.

If Angelina’s sudden decision to file for divorce came as a bombshell to Pitt, it was coming to the conclusion – rightly or wrongly – that his wife was bent on blackening his name as an unfit father that has been particularly traumatic.

Angelina and Brad have not spoken since September when the actress filed for divorce

Indeed, he prides himself on his down-to-earth parenting style. ‘As a father, he’s strict, fair and protective,’ says one friend.

Of course, there are two sides to every family break-up. But Pitt’s friends are notably quick to spring to his defence. ‘You can imagine how overwhelming all of this is to Brad, who was raised in a small town in Missouri and wanted nothing more than to raise a big, happy family,’ says another. ‘All of his friends are dismayed by the way Angelina has gone about things. She knows how the fame game works. She knows whatever legal documents she files are likely to get a partial airing in the media. Why has she allowed it to get so ugly?’

One of Pitt’s relatives takes up the same theme: ‘There must have been a better way than to file for sole custody of the kids and to blacken his name. Brad has only seen his kids a handful of times since then, and always with court-appointed monitors.

‘He has to undergo drug tests several times a month, which he has passed. He has also been cleared of all abuse allegations, which makes Angelina’s request for a “trauma therapist” to see the kids after the aircraft incident strange.

You have your hands full in a fight with Angelina

‘What did Brad ever do to this woman? It’s a big mystery.’

Another close friend adds: ‘To us, it feels like some sort of weird character assassination. Angelina loves her kids and will fight to the death for them, as well she should. But these tactics are mind-boggling.’

Though the Pitts are scheduled to appear before a judge this month, it’s likely to be many months before there’s any resolution to their situation

Two weeks ago, Pitt’s lawyers fired back at Angelina in court papers, suggesting she didn’t have the welfare of their children in mind when she allowed the names of their therapists to be released.

Other than that one legal salvo, Pitt has only issued a benign statement saying that his concern is solely for his children.

In all the analysis of what is surely one of the most public divorces of modern times, the role of Angelina’s medical crises are seldom discussed and for good reason: they are so personal and delicate. Yet I have learned they certainly played a part. In 2013, she had a double mastectomy after being diagnosed with a mutation to the BRCA1 gene – a sign that the carrier is susceptible to breast cancer.

Then last year, she had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed, a procedure which brought on an early menopause – associated with emotional and physiological upheaval. She was just 41.

Brad holding Zahara Marley Jolie, Angelina's daughter, an Tokyo International airport in 2005

The pair have seven children: Maddox, 15, Pax, 12, Zahara, 11, Shiloh, ten, and eight-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne

Her bravery aside, friends say she is no longer the same woman Pitt married, becoming difficult and hard to fathom.

One friend reports: ‘I ran into Brad about that time. He looked like hell. I asked how he was and he said what he always says – “It’s all good. No worries.”

‘After talking to him for a while, I realised his life was a living hell. The treatments, the medications, the ups and downs with Angelina, everything she was going through had worn him down to almost nothing. He told me, “I can’t complain. How dare I complain? Look at what she’s going through.” But it’s eaten him alive.’

I will have to battle like hell for my kids

It seems he feels the guilt often experienced by people dealing with a loved one’s illness. Pitt has told friends that he feels he failed Angelina and should have been a better husband. One close friend recounts a revealing anecdote: ‘About a year or so ago, Angelina returned home from a medical examination. It had been a real ordeal for her. She dragged herself into the house and found Brad in the den watching television and having a few beers. Meanwhile, the children had ransacked the place, playing with their toys.

In 2013, Angelina had a double mastectomy after being diagnosed with a mutation to the BRCA1 gene – a sign that the carrier is susceptible to breast cancer

‘Brad had given their staff the day off and now kicks himself over it. He told me, “A marriage doesn’t break up over big things – it’s those little things, those small blow-ups you think mean nothing. They’re the ones that add up, man. You look back and you think to yourself, “Damn, I should have done better. How did I not see that?”

‘He now wonders about the consultations Angelina had while he was on location and the lonely moments she may have experienced when he wasn’t there. He wonders if he should have been a better husband. It torments him.’

It is, perhaps, telling that when Pitt was married to Jennifer Aniston, one of her chief complaints was that he had ‘a sensitivity chip missing.’ His close friends knew what she meant.

One says: ‘He has difficulty accessing his emotions. During an argument, he usually goes off and simmers before becoming totally incommunicative. Both his wives have interpreted this to mean that he doesn’t care.

‘Once, Jennifer was in a restaurant with Brad and some of our friends. She was trying to have a fight with him, saying, “You’re sloppy, the house is a mess… all you do is smoke pot all day… you don’t care about anything but acting!”

‘There was no reaction from Brad. Finally, she stood up and screamed, “I may as well be talking to a stone!” and stormed out. He just rolled his eyes and said, “She’ll get over it. Jen’s always on my ass about something. That’s just marriage.” ’

Old friend Lawrence Miller, who grew up with Pitt in Springfield, Missouri, says: ‘It has to do with how he was raised. Brad comes from a small town where everyone was exceedingly polite to one another. His parents wouldn’t have raised their voices if the house was on fire. Brad thought it was an ideal family.

‘To my memory, though, there was also a lot of suppressed anger in the Pitt household. His mum was the dominant force – his dad didn’t say much, keeping his discontentment to himself. A lot went unsaid, but that’s how Brad was raised. Basically, when he married Angie, he married his mum – and then became his dad.’

Angelina had an entirely different background. Her parents divorced when she was young and she grew up in a household where the mother despised her father, actor Jon Voight, causing Angelina to feel the same way about him.

‘He vacillates between being furious with her and longing for her,' a friend of Brad's said

Growing up, Angelina experienced severe emotional problems, experimenting with drugs, including heroin. There were suicide attempts and a number of nervous breakdowns. Perhaps as a result, she’s a woman who has no trouble expressing herself.

‘Angelina does not have trouble accessing her anger, I can tell you that much about her,’ says one good friend of the actress in Los Angeles. ‘Once you’re in a fight with her, you have your hands full. She can be very dramatic.’

In truth, Brad and Angelina haven’t got along since legally marrying two years ago. They’d been happy for close to ten years, but began sleeping in different bedrooms within weeks of saying ‘I do’. Two months later, they went into marriage counselling. ‘All that did was illuminate fundamental differences they didn’t have the tools to handle,’ says a close friend of Pitt.

Perhaps the most damaging revelation is that Pitt abuses drugs. His friends acknowledge that over 25 years he has occasionally smoked pot. ‘Sure, I’ve seen him out of it a few times,’ says one. ‘But it’s pot, which is now legal in California. I don’t know how you indict someone for smoking pot.

Brad and Angelina got married two years ago and had been an item for 12 years

‘He drinks, too, but in the 20 years I have known him, I have only seen him inebriated a few times, and that was during the transition from Jen to Angie when things were really tense. Look, he’s no saint. The guy has his problems. He gets tired, has a short fuse and could be a lot more patient, he admits that.

‘He becomes obsessed with his work. Once, he told me that when the kids fight with one another he disappears on his motorcycle and lets Angelina handle it.

‘Still, he thought they were working it out. Apparently not.’

One thing is certain, according to what Pitt told intimates over the Christmas holidays – he’s not interested in another romance. Reports of him dating actress Kate Hudson or anyone else are simply not true.

As he recently put it: ‘Trusting any woman is going to be real tough after this mess.’

He’s even said he could be celibate for the rest of his life. If he never has another woman in his bed, he says, he would have no complaints – obviously, the ramblings of a man with a broken heart.

‘Brad knows he can’t go on the way he has been: crying, upset, angry and devastated,’ says one of his circle. ‘He told me last week, “2016 sucked for me – 2017 can’t be the same. Whatever happens, though, I know what I have to do. I have to fight like hell for my kids. That’s all I care about right now.” ’