[imagesource: Best Image / BACKGRID]

Yup, the legal battle between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie over their once-shared French vineyard estate, Château Miraval, is still ongoing with a new countersuit filed by Jolie.

The two of them have been playing tug-of-war over the French estate and vineyard, which was once the venue for the couple’s secretive wedding ceremony, since last year. The vineyard is also the location for their business, Miraval Wines.

First, Pitt sued Jolie after she sold her stake in the winery.

The actor accused Jolie and her business partners of trying to cut him out of the potentially lucrative sale, selling to Tenute del Mondo without his approval, and also claimed that he and his company had a right of refusal to any potential sale.

His lawsuit was then updated some months later to include the claim that Jolie had knowingly conspired with that rival company, which was aiming for a hostile takeover of Miraval Wines.

The updated court filing also made a point of painting Pitt as having poured his heart and soul into the wine-making business, while Jolie “contributed nothing to Miraval’s success”.

At this point, there were rumours that the legal affair would go to trial by jury – which seems to have become a trend in the celeb world.

The latest is that Nouvel, a company founded by Jolie, is suing Pitt for $250 million in compensatory damages, per CNN.

Jolie’s new lawsuit is accusing her ex-husband of “waging a vindictive war against her” and “hijacking” control of the lucrative winery business they once shared:

Jolie’s suit, filed on behalf of her former company Nouvel LLC, alleges, Pitt “and his allies” took “illegal and malicious actions” with the intention to “injure” Jolie and Nouvel, “by devaluing its investments and depriving it of its proper role in the management of Chateau Miraval, the world-famous producer of rosé wine.”

…The countersuit states Pitt “masterminded a so-far-successful plan to seize control of Chateau Miraval” and mishandled trademark registrations that had “devastating financial consequences” for Nouvel.

Image: Best Image / BACKGRID

The Cut goes on:

The lawsuit alleges that Pitt “hatched and executed a plan to secretly move assets from Château Miraval … to companies owned by him and his friends, thereby devaluing Jolie’s interest” and that he “squandered tens of millions of Château Miraval’s money on vanity projects,” like a million-dollar swimming pool and walls using stone masons from Croatia.

Jolie’s lawsuit also pushes back on many claims made in Pitt’s own legal fillings:

Pitt claimed that he and his ex had been in negotiations for a buyout in 2021 but that Jolie cut off talks with Pitt’s team months before her sale to Tenute del Mondo. Now, Jolie’s company is claiming that those discussions actually ended because Pitt “made an eleventh-hour demand for onerous and irrelevant conditions, including a provision designed to prohibit Jolie from publicly speaking about the events that had led to the breakdown of their marriage.”

Amidst all this, we’ve also heard recently that Jolie had sued the FBI under the name Jane Doe, asking for access to documents relating to the organisation’s investigation into allegations that Pitt had assaulted her on a private jet in 2016.

The event supposedly precipitated their divorce, which Jolie filed for in 2016 and the courts granted in 2019.

On top of all that, of course, the legal battle over custody of their children (mostly the minors – Zahara, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne – as Maddox and Pax are legally adults) is also still in the works.

Someone once predicted in 2018 that their divorce proceedings would  “outlive us all” and that seems to be right on track.

[sources:cnn&cut]