The lengthy legal battle between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie over their co-owned winery, Chateau Miraval, is set to go to trial next year.
According to the latest development in the ongoing battle between the couple, a judge allowed Pitt to move forward to court after he found a basis in the actor’s claims that a verbal agreement with his ex-wife was binding.
The former Hollywood power couple, who once shared ownership of the French estate, are now at odds over Jolie’s sale of her shares to a Russian billionaire, a deal that Pitt claims ‘violated’ their agreement. Pitt has argued that they had the understanding to avoid unilateral actions affecting Chateau Miraval’s ownership. To settle the dispute, he had reportedly asked Jolie to reverse the sale of her stake, a proposal she did not accept.The ruling was made in response to Jolie’s requests to dismiss three separate causes of action Pitt made back in April, in which his attorneys asserted that the former couple’s companies, “entered into a written agreement in 2013 to give each other a right of first refusal over any sale of their respective interests in Miraval” and that the written agreement “precluded Mondo Bongo and Nouvel from selling their interests without the other’s consent.”
Reports stated that Jolie contended that Pitt was offered the opportunity to buy her stake but declined to proceed unless she agreed to keep silent about alleged domestic abuse. Pitt’s camp, however, has maintained that this was a “business dispute,” and not a personal matter.
Jolie’s team has also claimed that Pitt has ‘mismanaged’ the company and led a ‘vindictive campaign’ against her since their divorce proceedings began in 2016. He has also been accused of ‘extravagant spending’ that allegedly drained the winery’s profits.
Angelina and Brad wed at the vineyard in the South of France in 2014. It was only two years later that the couple announced their split. Since their separation and divorce batte, three of the couple’s six children have officially dropped their dad’s last name. It was reported in 2023 that their eldest daughter Zahara, Shiloh and Vivienne had got rid of Pitt from their name.
Angelina Jolie accuses Brad Pitt of domestic violence, says she has ‘proof’
