Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s battle over a French winery has gone from dire to nuclear.
A company founded by Jolie has filed a stunning $250 million lawsuit against her ex-husband, alleging that he and a gang of cronies launched a devious campaign to “seize control of the French winery they bought as a couple.” in retaliation for the divorce and custody proceedings” and to “make sure… Jolie would never see a dime” of her huge profits.
The lawsuit also alleges that Pitt tried to use Jolie’s large financial stake in the winery to force her to sign a “silence clause” that would silence her about the circumstances leading up to their divorce and that Pitt took millions of the company’s money. has wasted on “vanity projects,” including over a million dollars for a swimming pool.
Court papers filed in Los Angeles on Tuesday claimed that after the couple bought the 1,300-acre estate in southern France in 2008, they had invested tens of millions of dollars together to improve it.
The lawsuit says Jolie and Pitt were each 50% owned through an intricate web of holding companies, and that “much of Jolie’s personal wealth” was tied up in the winery.
It says the couple had an agreement that the “Malificent” actress would oversee their humanitarian projects, including the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, while “leaving Pitt overseeing the couple’s investment in Chateau Miraval.”
Excitingly, the papers claim that although the winery won awards and became an extremely valuable asset under their ownership, “all was not well,” adding, “Pitt developed a publicly recognized alcohol abuse problem.”
It also dredges up the infamous fight on a private flight in 2016, saying that “after a serious and internationally publicized incident between Pitt, Jolie and the couple’s children, Jolie filed for divorce.”
The lawsuit was filed by Nouvel, the company Jolie founded to maintain her stake in the winery, which she recently sold to beverage giant Stoli.
It adds: “In retaliation for the divorce and child custody proceedings, Pitt embarked on a multifaceted, year-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. . He named himself the rightful owner of Chateau Miraval and his twofold objectives were to appropriate the value of Jolie’s company Nouvel and obtain exclusive ownership of Chateau Miraval.
The papers allege that after the divorce petition, Pitt simply ran the winery without consulting Jolie, that when she tried to get information and more control, he “rejected” her, and that he improperly tried to “block Jolie and Nouvel from obtaining of information about or managing Chateau Miraval.”
It also claims that he “has hatched and executed a plan to secretly move assets from Chateau Miraval to companies owned by him and his friends, thereby devaluing Jolie’s stake.”
The lawsuit also alleges that since the divorce, the directors of Pitt and Chateau Miraval have “wasted tens of millions of Chateau Miraval’s money on vanity projects that have little or no business justification,” including over a million dollars on a swimming pool, and that, “on Pitt’s direction also ordered Chateau Miraval to build and rebuild a single staircase in the castle, a total of four times after being dissatisfied with the first three attempts.”
It claims that Pitt also caused Chateau Miraval to spend money [several million dollars] about reconstructing stone walls with stonemasons from Croatia.
“These funds were issued because of Jolie and Nouvel’s objections,” it reads.
The lawsuit alleges that Pitt was aided in the alleged deception “by his allies, including Chateau Miraval directors Gary Bradbury, Roland Venturini and Warren Grant, and his business partners, Marc Perrin, Familles Perrin and Miraval Provence.” Nouvel is also suing them.
“Although Jolie was not obliged to sell [her stake] to Pitt, she nevertheless offered to sell her stake to him and negotiated with him for months. Nearly a deal,” the lawsuit claims, “overwhelmed Pitt’s pride: at 11 p.m., he demanded onerous and irrelevant terms, including a provision intended to prohibit Jolie from speaking publicly about the events. that led to the collapse. of their marriage. Pitt knew that much of Jolie’s wealth and liquidity was tied up in… [her stake in the winery] and used that fact to try to force Jolie to agree to his unreasonable terms.”
The papers say that in October 2021, “after Pitt ignored Jolie’s latest offer to sell her stake in the winery on the same terms Pitt had proposed, but without the silence clause,” she sold it to Stoli instead.
The suit says Stoli was ready to use his experience and distribution network for Chateau Miraval, but that Pitt “was unwilling to share control, refused to [Stoli] as an equal partner.”
The couple has been locked up in several legal skirmishes over the property for months. This latest filing is a counterclaim against documents filed by Pitt’s attorneys.
The couple bought the estate three years after they started dating. They married in a chapel on the property in 2014.