Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s legal battle has reached another all-time high. In court documents obtained by E! News, Nouvel, the company founded by the Eternals star, has sued Pitt for $250 million, alleging he devised a plan to take control of Chateau Miraval, a country estate the former couple purchased in 2008 following their divorce.
“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,” according to the Sept. 6 complaint. “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.” A lawsuit alleges Pitt “wasted” the Chateau’s “assets,” including “spending millions on vanity projects, including more than $1 million on swimming pool renovations and other funds restoring a recording studio.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
The suit also claims he “attempted to turn over 50% of the ownership of Chateau Miraval’s most valuable assets, the Miraval trademarks,” to a friend free of charge and transferred “millions of dollars of value from Nouvel and put it in the pockets of Pitt and his friends.” Additionally, the suit states that the Fight Club actor and Jolie had agreed that she would oversee the Jolie-Pitt Foundation and their other humanitarian project. Pitt would be responsible for the couple’s investment in Chateau Miraval.
Pitt, however, is accused of operating the winery without consulting Jolie and attempting “block Jolie and Nouvel from obtaining information about or managing Chateau Miraval.” According to the lawsuit, the Maleficent actress sold Nouvel to an international beverage company 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.”
The lawsuit claims that Jolie offered to sell her interest to Pitt even though she was not obligated to do so. In the final hours of the deal, Pitt allegedly demanded irrelevant and unreasonable conditions, including a clause prohibiting Jolie from talking publicly about how their marriage had broken down. “Pitt knew Jolie had a lot of money and liquidity in Nouvel, so he used that fact to try to compel Jolie to agree to his unreasonable terms.”
E! News reported a source close to Pitt called the lawsuit “yet another rehash and repackaging of old material to try and distract from the other party’s own behavior.” The former couple’s legal dispute over the French estate is the latest in a series of lawsuits. Pitt also filed a lawsuit against Jolie in February, claiming she sold their once-shared winery without his consent.
