Angelina Jolie says Brad Pitt lied in winery-sale lawsuit

Angelina Jolie says Brad Pitt is lying about ‘secret agreement’ regarding winery sale

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Published Oct. 4, 2022 Updated Oct. 5, 2022 9:52 AM PT

Angelina Jolie is calling ex-husband Brad Pitt a liar when it comes to their agreement — or lack thereof — regarding the sale of Chateau Miraval and its winery.

The allegation came in a cross-complaint filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court. In it, Jolie’s legal team argued that the couple had no agreement whatsoever regarding both sides consenting to the sale of either party’s interest in the property.

“Pitt alleges that when Jolie and Pitt first purchased their family home, Chateau Miraval, in 2008, the couple ‘impliedly’ agreed they would never sell their respective interests in the chateau without the other’s consent. That premise is false,” Jolie’s cross-complaint states.

(Pitt sued Jolie in February in part for “breach of implied-in-fact contract,” “breach of quasi-contract pleaded in the alternative” and “breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.”)

“Pitt offers no explanation for why this critically important right was never discussed or reduced to writing,” the document says. “He never explains exactly how or when this secret, unspoken agreement was reached. Nor does he explain why he and Jolie never told anyone about it — not their advisors, business partners, accountants, the press, or even their lawyers — nobody. The truth is that there is no such secret agreement.”

The filing notes that purchase of Chateau Miraval was “meticulously documented by counsel from at least three countries” due to complicated ownership before Pitt and Jolie took over.

Then it quotes Pitt’s business manager, Warren Grant, as writing, “Early in the process I raised the issue of a buy / sell agreement between A & B but was told by Brad it wasn’t necessary for two reasonable people to have such an agreement.”

The two former spouses were far from “reasonable,” apparently, by October 2021, when Pitt learned that Jolie had sold her half of Miraval to a subsidiary of Stoli Group, the conglomerate owned by Russian ex-pat vodka billionaire Yuri Shefler.

Pitt alleged in his February lawsuit that since the sale, his company and Shefler’s have been unable to agree on the management and strategic direction of the company that runs Chateau Miraval. He also complained that he could no longer enjoy his private residence as it was now co-owned by strangers.

The new document notes that “Jolie did offer to sell her interest in Chateau Miraval to Pitt, but in exchange for his purchase, Pitt demanded she sign a nondisclosure agreement that would have contractually prohibited her from speaking outside of court about Pitt’s physical and emotional abuse of her and their children. Jolie refused to agree to such a provision, and Pitt walked away from the deal.”

Jolie’s cross-complaint also reiterates essentially the same allegations of domestic abuse that were revealed in August after she filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the FBI.

“She continues to rehash, revise and reimagine her description of an event that happened six years ago by adding completely untrue information each time she fails to get what she wants,” a person close to Pitt told The Times. “Her story is constantly evolving.”

It was impossible to tell whether the heavily redacted FBI document that emerged in the case included the cross-complaint’s allegations that “Pitt choked one of the children and struck another in the face” during an international flight from Chateau Miraval in France to the United States.

Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt six days after that flight and its alleged altercations. The FBI and Los Angeles County’s Department of Child and Family Services investigated allegations of a physical altercation between Pitt and son Maddox, who was 15 at the time.

Neither agency followed up with any charges. A judge eventually granted 50-50 custody to both parents following in-depth observations and analysis of Pitt by doctors, therapists and other experts.

The couple, who met on the set of the 2005 movie “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” acquired the Chateau Miraval estate years before getting married there in 2014. Though the two became legally unmarried in 2019, their contentious divorce proceedings are ongoing.

An attorney for Pitt did not respond Tuesday to a request for comment.