Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s legal battles related to their divorce have been going on for over seven years now. While, in recent months, it's seemed that Pitt and Jolie's case is close to being settled, their $500 million French winery Château Miraval continues to be a point of contention between the exes. On top of that, this week Jolie claimed that Pitt physically abused her on multiple occasions and then asked her to sign an NDA to “control” her amidst negotiations of the sale of the winery. Pitt’s legal team has now responded.
On Thursday, the actress filed new documents with the Los Angeles Superior Court through which she alleged that her former husband predicated the sale of Château Miraval on her signing a non-disclosure agreement that “prohibited” his ex wife from speaking about his alleged past abuse. In the past, her claims of her ex's actions were solely related to a 2016 plane trip from France to Los Angeles. However, she's now suggesting that there's a “history of physical abuse” with her that “started well before” the reported 2016 incident.
Following Angelina Jolie’s latest motion, Brad Pitt is now alleging that her claims are a “smokescreen” to distract the ongoing winery situation, which could reportedly end up coming down to a dollar. Pitt’s legal team is now firing back by asking Jolie to disclose the NDAs she might have given to third parties and her own staff. In the words of lawyer John Berlinski, per Page Six:
If Jolie conditioned her continued employment of an individual on that individual’s agreement to an NDA covering what they witnessed in her home — including her treatment of her children and Pitt — that would be highly probative of whether she truly believed the provision requested by Pitt was an ‘unconscionable gag order.’
While Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were both declared legally single in 2019, the loose ends of their union have continued to drag on, from their custody battle to their shared French winery, which they each owned half of. But then, Jolie ended up selling her stake of the property to Russian billionaire Yuri Shefler in 2021, leading Pitt to sue Jolie, in a case he eventually won. Here’s what else John Berlinski said:
To the extent that Jolie requested this third party’s silence about her family or homelife, particularly in a circumstance where there was no business justification, it would speak volumes about whether Jolie actually viewed Pitt’s requested NDA, which was linked to the Miraval business, as the deal-ender she subsequently alleged it to be.
The latest comments from the Babylon star's legal team led his ex-wife's attorney, Paul Murphy, to respond. Murphy said that for the actor to “equate common NDAs covering confidential information” with him “attempting to cover up his history of abuse, is frankly, shameful.”
All the while, when it comes to the famous exes' domestic lives, their daughter, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, is set to turn 18 in May, and apparently planning on moving with Brad simply to “shake things up.” Angelina is reportedly not happy with the decision. Time will tell how these family dynamics will continue to evolve, and the same is true regarding whether the new legal developments will hold up in court.
