As we well know by now, Angelina Jolie is not afraid of a little legal battle. She’s back at it again — this time revealing more dirty secrets about her split from Brad Pitt as they argue over their winery!
Amid the former couple’s divorce and nasty custody battle, they are now hashing it out over their vineyard, Chateau Miraval, in the South of France. Earlier this year, Brad sued Angie for selling her interests in the company reportedly without his knowledge, something they’d agreed never to do when they bought the estate together in 2008. He also went on to slam Angie’s replacement, Stoli Group (owned by a Russian oligarch, Yuri Shefler), calling it a shady deal. To top it all off, Brad even insisted he wants the case to go to a trial by jury! So, he’s not messing around – but neither is his ex!!
On Tuesday, a company founded by the Maleficent actress to retain her stake in the winery, Nouvel, filed a shocking $250 million lawsuit against Pitt, claiming he and his team launched a scheme to “seize control” of the winery. The suit, filed in Los Angeles and obtained by Page Six, argued the Bullet Train star pushed his partner out of the business “in retaliation for the divorce and custody proceedings” and to “ensure… Jolie would never see a dime” of its profits. Yeesh.
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Even worse, the lawsuit insisted the actor tried to use Angelina’s large financial stake in the company — knowing “much of Jolie’s personal wealth” was tied up in the business — to get her to sign a “hush-clause” preventing her from ever discussing the circumstances of their divorce. You know, the divorce which followed the disturbing airplane incident involving their children. Was Brad trying to hide something?
After the couple invested tens of millions (!!!) to improve the property when they purchased the 1,300-acre estate (each owning 50% via a web of holding companies) in 2008, they agreed to let the Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood star maintain “oversight of the couple’s investment in Chateau Miraval.” Meanwhile, the actress oversaw the couple’s humanitarian projects, such as the Jolie-Pitt Foundation. As an outsider, it seemed like Brad and his team were doing a good job with the biz considering they won several prizes and it became a valuable asset, but… “all was not well” behind the scenes, especially in Brad’s personal life. The doc noted:
“Pitt developed a publicly acknowledged alcohol abuse problem.”
It also went on to bring up the infamous flight fight in 2016, saying:
“After a serious and internationally publicized incident between Pitt, Jolie, and the couple’s children, Jolie filed for divorce.”
The time of the split, Angelina argued, is when Brad began to take control of the winery:
“In retaliation for the divorce and custody proceedings, Pitt embarked on a multi-faceted, years-long campaign to seize control of Chateau Miraval and appropriate the company’s assets for his benefit and that of his own companies and friends. Appointing himself the rightful owner of Chateau Miraval, his twin objectives were to usurp the value of Jolie’s company, Nouvel, and to obtain sole ownership of Chateau Miraval.”
The papers also claim Brad stopped consulting Jolie altogether — and even tried to stop her from getting information or more control. When she tried, he “rebuffed” her and improperly tried to “block Jolie and Nouvel from obtaining information about or managing Chateau Miraval.” And it gets more complicated too, as the papers continued:
“[He] hatched and executed a plan to secretly move assets from Chateau Miraval… to companies owned by him and his friends, thereby devaluing Jolie’s interest.”
Oof. Not great.
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Another kicker? Brad is accused of wasting millions of dollars on some ridiculous projects!! Pitt and Chateau Miraval’s directors reportedly “squandered tens of millions of Chateau Miraval’s money on vanity projects that have little, if any, business justification,” including millions on a swimming pool! There was also a truly bizarre incident with a staircase:
“At Pitt’s direction, Chateau Miraval also commissioned a single staircase at the chateau to be built and rebuilt a total of four times after he was unhappy with the first three attempts.”
There’s literally NO point in rebuilding a staircase so many times unless you’re looking to waste money! Jeez! The 58-year-old did a similar thing when he forced Chateau Miraval to spend several million dollars on reconstructing stone walls using stone masons from Croatia. Just for the record, Jolie didn’t approve any of these projects, the doc stated:
“These funds were spent over Jolie’s and Nouvel’s objection.”
Because the winery’s directors were also allegedly in on the scheme, Nouvel is also suing Brad’s “allies, including Chateau Miraval directors Gary Bradbury, Roland Venturini, and Warren Grant, and his business partners, Marc Perrin, Familles Perrin and Miraval Provence.”
Going back to the claims the Eternals lead didn’t consult her partner before selling her stake to the company, the 47-year-old insisted she offered to sell to Brad several times, but when they couldn’t agree, she sold to another company:
“Although Jolie was not obligated to sell [her stake] to Pitt, she nevertheless offered to sell her interest to him and negotiated with him for months. Nearing a deal. Pitt’s hubris got the better of him: he made an eleventh-hour demand for onerous and irrelevant conditions, including a provision designed to prohibit Jolie from publicly speaking about the events that had led to the breakdown of their marriage. Pitt knew that much of Jolie’s wealth and liquidity were tied up in [her stake in the winery] and used that fact to try to force Jolie to agree to his unreasonable terms.”
According to the docs, in October 2021, “after Pitt ignored Jolie’s final offer to sell her interest in the winery on the same terms Pitt had proposed but without the hush-clause,” she sold it to Stoli. But ever since the sale, the performer has been “unwilling to share control” and “Pitt refused to work with [Stoli] as an equal partner.” Wow. What a mess!
Yet another legal ordeal for these two… Who do you think will win this one?!
[Image via MEGA/WENN/Phil Lewis]