Angelina Jolie’s Lawyers Say Brad Pitt Is Trying to ‘Cover Up Serious Abuse’ in Their Former Marriage

Jolie’s legal team said in a new statement that Pitt’s years-long legal battle against Jolie for selling her shares of their winery has been an effort to silence and smear her.

By Kylie Cheung | March 21, 2024 | 12:14pm

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Angelina Jolie’s Lawyers Say Brad Pitt Is Trying to ‘Cover Up Serious Abuse’ in Their Former Marriage

For years now, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have been locked in a legal battle over the winery they once shared, since Jolie sold her shares of Château Miraval in 2021 to the Russian oligarch-owned Stoli group. In February 2022, Pitt filed a lawsuit against Jolie for selling her shares without his consent, seeking monetary damages, legal fees, and calling for the sale of her shares to be voided; his suit accuses Jolie of intentionally seeking to “inflict harm” on him.

On Wednesday, Entertainment Tonight reported that five out of seven of Pitt’s claims against Jolie have been dismissed by a judge; these include dismissed tort claims that would have made Jolie liable to pay Pitt for damages and would have granted Pitt her former shares of the winery. (Two claims that can still move forward include Pitt’s claim that he and Jolie shared an “unwritten, unspoken implied contract” that Jolie would not sell her shares without Pitt’s consent,” and Pitt’s assertion that he invested more in Miraval than Jolie did and should be paid accordingly.) In response, Jolie’s attorney Paul Murphy said in a statement to ET that he hopes Pitt will drop his lawsuit altogether, and wrote off the entire suit as an attempt to distract from abuse allegations against him.

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“The judge dismissed most of Mr. Pitt’s claims because they don’t have a legal basis. 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,” Murphy said in the statement. This wouldn’t be the first time since the start of this legal conflict that Jolie’s camp has referenced allegations that Pitt physically and verbally assaulted Jolie and two of their children on a plane in 2016, leading up to their separation and divorce.

In the summer of 2022, Jolie’s attorneys said that she was prepared to sell her shares to Pitt in the summer of 2021—until he “made an eleventh-hour demand for onerous and irrelevant conditions,” including “a provision designed to prohibit Jolie from publicly speaking about the events that led to the breakdown of their marriage.” This seemed to reference the 2016 allegations, which are detailed at length in an FBI report that was made public in 2022.

“Angelina truly harbors no ill will toward Mr. Pitt, and hopes he will now release her from his frivolous lawsuit, stop his relentless attacks, and join her in helping their family heal in private,” Murphy said. Of course, if she did harbor ill will, that would be fairly understandable! Since 2022, as Pitt’s lawyers have gone out of their way to smear Jolie as his vindictive ex who stole their winery to punish him, Jolie’s attorneys have shared her side of the story. Jolie’s former holding company which oversaw her shares of Miraval previously called Pitt a “petulant child” and accused him of “looting” Miraval in a court filing last year. Nouvel sought $350 million in damages from Pitt for his alleged severe mismanagement at the helm of the winery.

A source told ET that Jolie’s camp is ultimately “confident” that the court will throw out Pitt’s final two claims against Jolie. But at least for now, the case trudges on more than two years after Pitt first filed the suit.