Pitt tastes Jolie’s wrath as she sells chateau stake ‘for spite’

In the latest chapter of their toxic divorce, the estranged pair seem to have borrowed the plot of Mr & Mrs Smith for a less comic sequel.

Angelina Jolie and her then husband Brad Pitt at a conference in London in 2014 on ending sexual violence in conflict. Picture: Carl Court/ AFP

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt famously met in 2004 while playing a married couple who were hired to kill each other. Now they seem to have borrowed the plot of Mr & Mrs Smith for a less comic sequel called the War of the Rose.

Nearly six years after they filed for divorce, Pitt is accusing his former wife of secretly selling — to a Russian-controlled firm — her share of Chateau Miraval, their wine-producing Provencal estate, with the intent of making him suffer.

In the latest episode of one of Hollywood’s most toxic celebrity splits, a lawsuit by Pitt, 58, in Los Angeles claims that Jolie, 46, sold the estate, which Pitt turned into the producer of a top-rated rose, to “recover unearned windfall profits for herself while inflicting gratuitous harm on Pitt”.

Jolie and Pitt married at the property in 2014 in a ceremony attended by their six children, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Vivienne, Knox and Maddox. After Pitt threw himself into wine-making, Miraval earned the esteem of connoisseurs.

A view of Angelina Jolie’s and Brad Pitt's then Miraval property in Correns, France. Picture: AP

Their star presence led to celebrities and the ordinary rich piling into the area around the village of Correns, northwest of Saint Tropez, to try their hand with vinification. The property bought in 2011 for €35m is now worth €140m ($221m), local estimates say.

Pitt’s suit in the Los Angeles superior court claims the vineyard became his passion and Jolie, who contributed far less to its prosperity, did not have his consent to sell it last northern autumn.

It went to Tenute del Mondo, a firm that is part of the Luxembourg-based SPI Group and controlled by the oligarch Yuri Shefler. The Russian’s brands, which include Stolichnaya vodka, contribute to a net worth of $US2.5 billion ($3.5bn), according to Forbes magazine.

“Jolie consummated the purported sale without Pitt’s knowledge, denying Pitt the consent right she owed him and the right of first refusal her business entity owed him,” Pitt’s lawyers wrote.

“She sold her interest with the knowledge and intention that Shefler and his affiliates would seek to control the business to which Pitt had devoted himself and to undermine Pitt’s investment in Miraval.”

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in a scene from the 2005 film Mr & Mrs Smith. Picture: Regency Enterprises / New Regency Pictures

By being forced to share with a business, despite an agreement never to sell it without mutual consent, Pitt felt he could no longer treat the property as his home. Jolie told Pitt last year that she had reached a “painful decision, with a heavy heart,” despite saying that they had bought it as a family business,” the suit says.

Jolie felt that, as an opponent of intoxicating drink, she could “no longer maintain any ownership position in an alcohol-based business”, she told Pitt, according to his lawyers.

Claims of inebriated behaviour by Pitt are among the grievances of his former wife, who has fought him over custody of their children as well as other property and assets.

Pitt’s investment and labour had added “hundreds of millions of dollars” to the value of the estate, his lawyers claim. This “allowed Jolie an opportunity to capitalise on Pitt’s success and cash out, without ever having lifted a finger to grow the enterprise”.

Pitt’s lawyers failed last autumn to have a Luxembourg court cancel the sale. The buyers said they were honoured to be partners of the actor-vintner. “We are delighted to have a place alongside Brad Pitt,” Damian McKinney, head of the Stolichnaya group, said.

Jolie has not yet commented. Pitt’s lawyers have requested a trial by jury.

The Times