Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie‘s legal battle over their French vineyard Château Miraval has gotten even more complicated.
Tenute del Mondo, the company that Jolie, 48, has been trying to sell her shares of the winery to countersued Pitt, 60, and his company Mondo Bongo on Monday, May 13, for €20 million, or over $21 million U.S. dollars.
In court documents obtained by multiple outlets, Tenute claimed Pitt misdirected funds and assets from Château Miraval “to be spent on his personal expenses and to be diverted to his other business ventures rather than be paid out as dividends and loan repayments.”
The company alleged that Pitt’s control over the French winery resulted in damages. The paperwork accused Pitt of causing “millions of its funds to be spent on projects that benefit him personally, including more than $1 million on renovations for a swimming pool that only he uses.”
Battle of the exes. Brad Pitt filed a lawsuit against his ex-wife Angelina Jolie in February 2022, claiming that she illegally sold her shares of Miraval, a French company including a chateau and vineyard that the former couple purchased together in the south of France. The Mr. and Mrs. Smith stars first gained a controlling […]
According to the countersuit, Pitt allegedly diverted Château Miraval’s assets to various side businesses “by funding them with Château Miraval’s money and/or allowing them to use Château Miraval’s image, premises and assets for zero or below market compensation.”
“Pitt and Mondo Bongo have turned Château Miraval into their personal piggy bank,” the countersuit alleged. “They have entered into a series of transactions using Château Miraval’s funds that have deprived Tenute of the profits and loan repayments to which it is entitled.”
While Pitt and Jolie were declared legally single in 2019, the duo have spent years wrapped up in legal disputes over their French vineyard and custody of their minor children. (The pair share six kids: Maddox, 22, Pax, 19, Zahara, 18, Shiloh, 17, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 15.)
When Jolie sold her shares of the property in 2021, Pitt subsequently took legal action. He claimed in June 2022 that Jolie sold her stake to “inflict harm” on him amid their divorce.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have been locked in a messy court battle ever since she filed for divorce in September 2016, but the pair were not always at odds. The Oscar winners allegedly fell for each other while filming the 2005 action film Mr. & Mrs. Smith. The origination of their relationship instantly caused […]
“Pitt and Jolie purchased the château as a home to share with their children and the vineyard as a family business,” the court documents read at the time. “They agreed they would never sell their respective interests in Miraval without the other’s consent. The couple spent the holidays at Miraval with their children and were married there in 2014.”
Earlier this year, Pitt suffered a setback in the case when a judge dismissed several of his complaints against Jolie regarding the property.
“The judge dismissed most of Mr. Pitt’s claims because they don’t have a legal basis,” Jolie’s attorney, Paul Murphy, said in a statement, noting that she had “no ill will toward” her estranged husband. “Mr. Pitt’s lawsuit has never been about a business dispute; instead, it is about his attempts to cover up serious abuse, and we are gratified the judge has thrown out so much of Mr. Pitt’s complaint.”
Us Weekly has reached out to Pitt’s rep for comment.
