Trigger warning: domestic abuse
Angelina Jolie was allegedly abused by Brad Pitt prior to an infamous 2016 incident that led to the humanitarian filing for divorce, according to a new damning court filing amid a winery share legal battle and a restrictive non-disclosure agreement (NDA).
On Thursday (April 4), Angelina’s legal team filed a motion seeking to release communications they say would prove the 60-year-old actor would not let his former spouse sell her share of the French winery Château Miraval they owned together to him unless she agreed to a "more onerous" and "expansive" NDA.
Highlights
- Angelina Jolie's lawyers alleged Brad Pitt physically abused her before 2016.
- 2016 incident: Brad was accused of physical abuse on a flight, involving his and Angelina's children.
- Brad allegedly refused to buy Angelina's winery share without her silence on abuse.
- Court documents revealed an ongoing ownership dispute over Château Miraval winery.
Moreover, the 48-year-old actress’ legal team alleged that Brad would not resolve a decade-long ownership dispute unless Angelina agreed to stop disclosing her domestic abuse allegations to the public.
The Maleficent star’s lawyers claimed: "While Pitt's history of physical abuse of Jolie started well before the family’s September 2016 plane trip from France to Los Angeles, this flight marked the first time he turned his physical abuse on the children as well. Jolie then immediately left him."
Amid a winery share legal battle, Angelina Jolie accused Brad Pitt of abuse dating back from before the infamous 2016 plane incident
Image credits: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images
Back in October 2022, Angelina's lawyers alleged in a lawsuit that her ex-husband "grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her, and then grabbed her shoulders and shook her again before pushing her into the bathroom wall" during a flight from the couple's Château Miraval winery in France to California.
The suit further claimed that Brad started "deriding Jolie with insults" and, when one of the kids defended their mom, the actor "lunged at his own child and Jolie grabbed him from behind to stop him." Brad then "threw himself backward into the airplane's seats injuring Jolie's back and elbow," the suit added.
The actors, who were declared legally single by a judge back in 2019, share six kids: Maddox, 22, Pax, 20, Zahara, 19, Shiloh, 17, and 15-year-old twins, Vivienne and Knox.
But now, amid a lengthy divorce procedure involving custody battles and a business venture disagreement that is still ongoing in European courts, new details of one of the most famous marriages in Hollywood history have emerged.
Brad and Angelina’s lawyers battled each other over control of the Château Miraval winery in the south of France, where the pair married in 2014
Image credits: Gregg DeGuire/WireImage
Angelina's attorney, Paul Murphy, said in a statement obtained and published by People on Thursday: "Mr. Pitt refused to purchase Ms. Jolie’s interest when she would not be silenced by his NDA.
"By refusing to buy her interest but then suing her, Mr. Pitt put directly at issue why that NDA was so important to him and what he hoped it would bury: his abuse of Ms. Jolie and their family.
"After eight months of delays, this motion asks the Court to force Mr. Pitt to finally produce that evidence."
Brad and Angelina’s lawyers have battled each other through a set of corporate proxies over control of the Château Miraval winery in the south of France, where the pair married in 2014, and which is estimated to be worth some $162 million.
Miraval is owned by Luxembourg holding company Quimicum S.à.r.l., which, in turn, is half-owned by Brad -- through his company Mondo Bongo LLC -- with the other half in the hands of Nouvel LLC, a company Angelina used to own, which she sold to Russian oligarch Yuri Shefler.
Miraval is owned by the holding company Quimicum, which is half-owned by Brad's Mondo Bongo LLC and Angelina's former Nouvel LLC
Image credits: miraval/noemieloussier
The future of the Southern French winery estate, best known for its rosé, has been playing out in Luxembourg courts, a case that has been reported by the Luxembourg Times.
The pair have traded a range of accusations over the past few years, with the Fight Club star accusing Angelina of failing to contribute to the estate since 2013 “in the midst of preliminary renovations,” Mondo Bongo said in a US legal document in 2022.
The Lara Croft actress alleged that Brad had appointed himself as the rightful owner of the winery, "wasting millions of assets" and attempting to give her 50% stake to his friends, according to a counterclaim filed in 2022 in the US.
Intending to become equal owners, the couple bought Miraval by purchasing all of Quimicum's shares for €25 million, with Mondo Bongo acquiring 60% of the stock and Nouvel the remaining 40%.
In 2013, Brad transferred 10% of Quimicum to Nouvel, which, at the time, was fully owned by Angelina, so the couple then each owned 50%.
But in 2021, Mondo Bongo sued Nouvel in Luxembourg to void the 2013 deal, the counterclaim said, with Brad alleging that the couple’s agreement for joint ownership was invalid because it allegedly lacked “cause,” which, under Luxembourg law, means a benefit or goal, the counterclaim said.
Angelina's lawyer claimed: "Pitt's history of physical abuse of Jolie started well before the family’s September 2016 plane trip from France"
A Luxembourg court, threw the case out, a decision an appeals court later confirmed, saying it “lacked merit in its position,” the claim said.
By 2020, the board of Quimicum consisted of a single director, who had been supplied by a management firm, Angelina's counterclaim said.
“Concerned about Pitt’s behavior ... representatives of Nouvel spoke to Quimicum’s director on September 2, 2020. What they learned was deeply troubling. For years, Quimicum’s director had not taken any step to exercise corporate oversight over Château Miraval,” the counterclaim said.
As a result of the spate of unresolved business quarrels, in 2021, Angelina sold her stake in Quimicum to a subsidiary of Luxembourg-based vodka and drinks company, Stoli Group, which is owned by Russia's Yuri Shefler.
According to new claims made by Angelina’s side, the winery lawsuit would not have happened if Brad had purchased his ex-wife's shares when she made a reported offer before selling them to the Russian oligarch.
Miraval's owner, Quimicum, is now half-owned by Russian oligarch Yuri Shefler's company Stoli Group after Angelina sold Nouvel to him
Additionally, Angelina’s lawyers recently also claimed Brad refused the deal unless it came with the NDA, and they suggested the actor feared that sealed documents included in their separate, years-long custody battle could be made public without the NDA.
"Jolie’s sealed filing, which included emails, summaries of the family’s expected testimony and other evidence, caused Pitt to fear that the information could eventually become public," her lawyers wrote, adding that Brad wanted Angelina to "contractually bind herself to that silence" about his alleged "personal misconduct, whether related to Miraval or not."
A June 2023 filing from Brad's legal team, however, claimed Angelina was the one who suggested an “even broader non-disparagement clause” as part of the purchase deal, limiting negative or derogatory statements about each other, and Brad’s team presented a “narrower” one “intended to protect the business.”
“The clause also made clear that there would be no limitation on Jolie’s ability to speak in connection with Pitt and Jolie’s divorce or custody proceedings. It specifically provided: This commitment shall however not limit the ability, for any Party, to make any claims, filings or testimony in any legal proceedings,” People reported.
The topic of the NDA came up last year in the US court back-and-forth, as a source on Brad's side said in June 2023 that "the non-disparagement clause in the contract" was a "totally standard" business transaction; meanwhile, a source close to Angelina claimed that Brad "refused to complete the Miraval sale with Jolie unless she agreed to being silenced about the abuse," People reported.
The actors share six kids: Maddox, 22, Pax, 20, Zahara, 19, Shiloh, 17, and 15-year-old twins, Vivienne and Knox
Image credits: Jun Sato/WireImage
In June of 2021, the last remaining director from Quimicum resigned, rendering Nouvel and its new owners unable to make any decisions under Luxembourgish law. “That left Pitt and Château Miraval without any effective supervision because a directorless Quimicum could not take any action to oversee Château Miraval,” a counterclaim from Angelina said.
Brad dismissed a proposal from Nouvel to appoint two directors to the Quimicum board, two from Mondo Bongo and one chosen “among reputed Luxembourg independent directors,” a claim said.
As of February 2023, the court battle for control of Quimicum, and, therefore, Château Miraval, was put to rest, the Luxembourg Times reported.
Luxembourg lawyer Claude Schmartz was appointed temporary administrator of the holding company Quimicum, which owns the Château Miraval winery, according to a company filing in Luxembourg's business register.
The judge overseeing the case decided on Claude as Quimicum’s new administrator, and both sides agreed, lawyer Anne Sophie Boul, who represents Nouvel, said at the time.
Claude was put in charge of Quimicum for a renewable term of three months until both parties could find a permanent solution, Brad's Luxembourg lawyer, Véronique Hoffeld, told the Luxembourg Times at the time.
Bored Panda has contacted Angelina and Brad’s respective legal teams for comment.
"Stay strong Angelina," a reader commented
