In the ongoing legal battle concerning their shared French winery, Château Miravel, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are clashing over Jolie’s demand for Pitt to disclose certain third-party communications linked to an incident on a plane in 2016.
Court documents, as seen by CNN and submitted by Pitt’s legal team, argue that these communications are irrelevant to the current dispute, merely having a slight connection to the events on the plane. According to these documents, Jolie is attempting to use the business disagreement as a means to revisit issues from their divorce proceedings.
Pitt’s lawyers have labeled her request as “oppressive and harassing,” stating that Pitt had already agreed to provide adequate documentation concerning what transpired during the flight that led to their separation.
However, Jolie has refused Pitt’s offer and is insisting on access to his discussions with close advisors regarding sensitive matters such as his post-incident therapy, alleged drug and alcohol testing, and his purported misuse of alcohol.
Paul Murphy, Jolie’s attorney, commented that the information around Pitt’s 2021 attempt to secure a non-disclosure agreement during negotiations to purchase her winery share is crucial to the case. Murphy expressed that while Jolie desires to move past these conflicts for their family’s healing, she will continue to seek the necessary evidence to contest Pitt’s claims as long as he maintains the lawsuit.
The legal struggles between Pitt and Jolie, which began in 2016, have persisted even though they were legally recognized as single in 2019, with their divorce yet to be finalized.
Details of the private plane incident became public in August 2022 through a heavily redacted FBI report, which revealed allegations by Jolie of Pitt physically and verbally abusing her and their children during the flight from France to the US. Despite these allegations, Pitt was neither arrested nor charged, as stated by the FBI.
The dispute over Miravel escalated in February 2022 when Pitt sued Jolie and her former company, Nouvel LLC, for what he claimed was an “unlawful” sale of her share in the winery, which they bought together in 2008. Pitt’s legal team contended that the couple had agreed neither would sell their share without the other’s consent, describing Jolie’s eventual sale as “vindictive” following an unfavorable custody decision.
In response, a countersuit by Nouvel LLC in September 2022 accused Pitt of conducting a “vindictive war” against Jolie. It alleged that there was no such agreement on the sale and claimed Jolie tried selling her share to Pitt, but negotiations failed over a non-disclosure agreement clause that would have prevented her from discussing their marriage’s breakdown publicly.
Jolie eventually sold Nouvel LLC and its stake in the winery to Tenute del Mondo, a subsidiary of the Stoli Group, owned by Russian oligarch Yuri Shefler, in October 2021.
