The war rages on. In yet another legal document relating to Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's years-long legal dispute over their French winery, Château Miraval, the Eternals actress has made new claims that Brad physically abused her "well before" the former couple's much-publicized 2016 private jet incident.
According to accounts from the flight, the actress accused her then-husband of seizing her by the head, shaking her, and dumping alcohol on her during a violent dispute that included at least one of their six children.
“While Brad’s history of physical abuse of Angelina 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,” reads the new filing.
Sources told In Touch that Angelina, 48, is out to get Brad, 60, and is willing to do whatever it takes to bring him down, including releasing hidden videos of Brad supposedly abusing her.
“Angelina secretly recorded Brad many times throughout their marriage and has made it clear to him that she’s willing to use them to get back at him,” According to one source, Angelina may periodically leak stories to the press when she believes things aren't going her way in their continuing legal struggle — or when Brad looks to be connecting with their children. (They share Maddox (22), Pax (20), Zahara (19), Shiloh (17), and twins Knox and Vivienne (15).
According to the insider, the Fight Club star may be inclined to call her bluff due to the nature of the bouts she supposedly videotaped. “It will do as much damage — if not more — to Angie if they’re made public,” reveals the source, adding that both stars would be destroyed “if people saw how they behaved behind closed doors. They were as bad as each other.”
So the tug-of-war continues. “Brad dropped his custody case because he realized it was futile,” according to another insider. “He hoped it would win him brownie points from Angelina, but he was wrong. He made her life hell, and she’s hell-bent on destroying him.”
Earlier this month, Angelina and Brad's struggle over the French winery they once owned together is heating up and reigniting old feuds, as fresh legal documents suggest Brad had a "history of physical abuse of Angelina" before their deadly aircraft journey in 2016.
On April 4, Angelina filed a motion with the Los Angeles Superior Court, a copy of which CNN has obtained, in which she claims that she attempted to sell Brad her stake in the Miraval winery and that their negotiations ultimately broke down after Brad conditioned the sale on Angelina signing an NDA that "prohibited Angelina from speaking (other than in court) about Brad's abuse of Angelina and their children by attempting to tie Brad's reputation to Miraval's business."
This week's latest filing originates from Brad's 2022 complaint, in which he claimed that he and Angelina agreed not to sell their part in the vineyard without the other's consent. In a June 2023 filing, he claimed that Angelina's sale of her ownership in the winery was "vindictive" following an "adverse custody ruling."
Angelina also claims in Thursday's filing that Brad's "history of physical abuse of Angelina started well before the family's September 2016 plane trip from France to Los Angeles," but she does not go into detail about the alleged earlier abuse.
“At trial, Angelina will prove through testimony, emails, photographs, and other evidence why Brad was so concerned about his own misconduct that he blew up his own deal to purchase Angelina’s interest in Miraval because she refused to agree to his new, expansive NDA,” the filing reads.
Angelina claimed in the lawsuit on Thursday that she agreed to sign an NDA "limited to not disparaging Miraval's wine business" as part of her first contract to sell Brad her ownership in the winery, which they were nearing completion at the time.
Brad had previously claimed in his June 2023 amended complaint that after Angelina refused to sign his NDA, she proposed an even broader NDA that “would have provided that “other than in court pleadings or testimony, neither party shall directly or through a party's representatives make any derogatory remark about the other party in a public forum."
Business Times has reached out to a Brad representative for comment on the new charges detailed in the April 4 petition.
“Mr. Brad refused to purchase Ms. Angelina’s interest when she would not be silenced by his NDA. By refusing to buy her interest but then suing her, Mr. Brad put directly at issue why that NDA was so important to him and what he hoped it would bury: his abuse of Ms. Angelina and their family,” Paul Murphy, Angelina’s attorney, told CNN in a statement on April 4. “After eight months of delays, this motion asks the Court to force Mr. Brad to finally produce that evidence.”
According to the complaint, Angelina did not seek charges against Brad for the 2016 confrontation because she decided "the best course was for Brad to accept responsibility and help the family recover from the post-traumatic stress he caused."
CNN previously reported that Brad was not detained or charged in connection with the 2016 incident when the FBI concluded its investigation and a counsel for Brad contested Angelina's account of the incident in an October 2022 filing. Brad's representative said in a statement to CNN at the time “Brad has accepted responsibility for what he did but will not for things he didn’t do.”
Angelina sold her portion of the winery to Tenute del Mondo, a subsidiary of the Stoli Group, which is owned by Russian businessman Yuri Shefler.
The continuous court battles, as well as "Brad's unyielding attempts to control and punish Angelina, continue to take a huge emotional and financial toll on her and their family," according to the petition. "Angelina longs for their family to be able to heal and their children to be spared further pain and trauma, and truly wishes Brad would want the same too."
Angelina filed for divorce from Brad in 2016. They were declared legally single in 2019, and a joint custody arrangement was established in 2021.
Legal processes related to the Miraval issue are also ongoing. In 2008, the former couple purchased a country home and winery in southern France.
