Nouvel, a company founded by Angelina Jolie, has filed a $250 million lawsuit against her ex-husband Brad Pitt.
In 2008, the former Hollywood couple bought a substantial interest in Chateau Miraval SA, a French company comprising a home and vineyard in the south of France.
According to court documents obtained by E! News, Nouvel has accused Brad of devising a campaign to “seize control” of the 1300-acre country estate after his divorce from Angelina.
The complaint, filed on September 6, reads: “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 lawsuit states that Brad “wasted” the Chateau’s assets, “spending millions on vanity projects, including more than $1 million on swimming pool renovations and other funds restoring a recording studio.”
It further alleges that the actor “attempted to turn over 50% of the ownership of Chateau Miraval’s most valuable assets, the Miraval trademarks” to one of his friends for free, taking “millions of dollars of value from Nouvel and put it in the pockets of Pitt and his friends.”
The suit also states that Brad and Angelina, who share six children together, had an agreement that she would oversee their humanitarian projects, including the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, while “oversight of the couple’s investment in Chateau Miraval was left in the hands of Pitt.”
However, the lawsuit alleges Brad operated the winery without conferring with Angelina and when she asked to get more information and control over the property, he tried to “block Jolie and Nouvel from obtaining information about or managing Chateau Miraval.”
The lawsuit states that in October 2021, Angelina sold Nouvel to an international beverage company after Brad “ignored Jolie’s final offer to sell her interest in the winery on the same terms Pitt had proposed but without the hush clause.”
It reads: “Although Jolie was not obligated to sell to Pitt, she nevertheless offered to sell her interest to him and negotiated with him for months.”
The suit continues: “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 Nouvel and used that fact to try to force Jolie to agree to his unreasonable terms.”
In response to the filing, a source close to Brad told E! News that the lawsuit is “yet another rehash and repackaging of old material to try and distract from the other party’s own behaviour.”
Angelina filed for divorce from Brad in September 2016 following two years of marriage.
The former couple share six children; Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Knox and Vivienne.
