Support truly
independent journalism
Brad Pitt has submitted a legal request for an “intrusive” motion filed by his ex-wife Angelina Jolie in their ongoing winery lawsuit to be denied.
The former couple, who were divorced in 2019, have been entangled in a legal battle over Jolie’s shares of their jointly purchased winery since 2022 when she “secretly” sold her part of the French Château Miraval to a Russian oligarch.
In the most recent development in the case, Pitt asked for the judge to strike down a request from Jolie’s legal team, which asked him to release third-party communications about the pair’s infamous 2016 plane incident.
Pitt’s lawyers called Jolie’s request “wide-ranging and intrusive,” as well as a “sensationalist fishing expedition,” in his legal filing, obtained by People.
His lawyers claimed that Pitt had already “voluntarily offered to produce documents sufficient to show everything that occurred on the flight that precipitated the ex-couple’s divorce – the event that Jolie alleges made Pitt’s NDA request so offensive here.”
“Jolie, however, rejected Pitt’s compromise and moved to compel his communications with third parties – including his most trusted advisors – about such sensitive issues as the therapy he voluntarily undertook after the flight incident in an effort to better himself, ‘drug and alcohol testing’ he has allegedly undergone, his alleged ‘overuse or abuse of alcohol,’ and other actions taken in the aftermath of the flight,” they added.
His legal team argued that Pitt’s “private, third-party communications” about the private jet ride were irrelevant to the French winery dispute.
“Jolie, however, wants them anyway as part of her efforts to turn this business dispute into a re-litigation of the former couple’s divorce case,” Pitt’s lawyers said.
The Independent has contacted Jolie’s legal representative for comment.
After Pitt sued his ex-wife for allegedly selling her shares of the French property they purchased together in 2008, Jolie countersued the Fight Club star.
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days
New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days
New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled
In the countersuit, Jolie disclosed new details of alleged abusive behavior during a 2016 private jet ride that ultimately led to their divorce.
The bombshell FBI documents also included allegations that he was verbally and physically abusive to one of their children.
Pitt has since denied all allegations of verbal and physical abuse.
The ex-couple share six children: Maddox, 22, Pax, 20, Zahara, 19, Shiloh, 18, and 16-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox.
Earlier this year, a Los Angeles judge ordered Jolie to submit eight years’ worth of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). The ruling came after Jolie’s legal team filed a motion seeking to release communications that they say would prove Pitt would not let her sell her share of the winery to him unless she agreed to an “expansive” NDA.
Pitt’s lawyers then asked that the judge compel his ex-wife to submit the NDAs she had signed in the past. His legal team argued that the NDAs were “highly relevant” to Jolie’s “purported justifications for refusing to adhere to her contractual obligations to Pitt” when she sold her shares of the winery.
Jolie’s attorney, Paul Murphy, later said they are “more than happy to turn [the NDAs] over.”
Murphy, at the time, said the ruling “opens the door to discovery on all issues related to Pitt’s abuse” and “we welcome that transparency in all parties’ discovery responses.”
