Brad Pitt has won the latest round of his bitter legal war with ex-wife Angelina Jolie over control of the French vineyard they co-owned during their marriage.
The former film star couple bought the Chateau Miraval estate together in 2008, with Pitt taking a leading role in a business which produces award-winning sparkling rosé wine.
The Fight Club star, 60, says he was stunned to discover in 2021 that Jolie had sold her share to Russian oligarch Yuri Shefler without his agreement or knowledge.
Pitt insists they struck a deal when their marriage broke down in 2016 that each would get first refusal to buy the other out of the vineyard.
He is suing Jolie for alleged breaching of contract, with the Los Angeles Superior Court ruling that the case could go ahead to trial.
Jolie, 48, an Oscar winner for 2000’s Girl, Interrupted, argued the lawsuit should be dismissed as “frivolous, malicious, and part of a problematic pattern” from Pitt.
But Judge Lia Martin has now rejected that argument, paving the way for a titanic clash between the warring film stars at a civil trial.
The legal battle over the fate of the vineyard has been waged in courts in the United States and France, as well as Luxembourg where Mr Shefler’s company was recently stripped of some of its shares.
This meant Pitt was once again the majority shareholder.
When Jolie sold her stake in the vineyard in Provence in the South of France to Mr Shefler's Stoli Group for $64 million, Pitt learned of the deal through a press release.
He then accused the oligarch of trying to “bully” and “threaten” him and hit out at the pre-emptive press release announcing their new “partnership”.
Mr Shefler claims the US courts have no jurisdiction to hear a full trial on the sale of the vineyard.
In the course of legal proceedings, Pitt has been accused of spending millions of dollars of profits from the vineyard on “vanity projects” including a recording studio and renovating the swimming pool.
“Pitt wasted the company’s assets”, said lawyers for Jolie’s company Nouvel, who also took aim at Pitt’s “ludicrous” presentation of himself as a winemaker, suggesting he “deals in illusions, not dirt and grapes”.
Pitt, the star of Troy and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, denies the claims, saying he has been instrumental in “building” the vineyard business into a success.
The former A List couple finalised their divorce in 2019 and have been separately locked in a protracted custody battle involving their six children.
Jolie has defended the sale of her vineyard shares, saying she was seeking “financial independence” from Pitt and to “have some form of peace and closure to this deeply painful and traumatic chapter of her and their children’s lives.”
A date of their trial has not yet been set.
