In some way, almost ten years after they separated, greater than seven years after they had been declared legally single, and roughly 18 months after lastly settling their divorce, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are nonetheless battling it out in court docket.
This newest spherical is just not technically about their marriage. That half is over. It isn’t about custody. That chapter has additionally largely ended. Right now’s combat includes Château Miraval, the French property and vineyard they as soon as owned collectively, and a complicated monetary query that has adopted Jolie for years:
Was Angelina Jolie ever actually cash-strapped?
That query first exploded in tabloid kind again in late 2018, when a report claimed Jolie was “dwelling paycheck to paycheck” and longing for “Maleficent 2” to wrap so she may accumulate the remainder of her reported $25 million Disney payday. On the time, the concept sounded nearly not possible. Jolie was one of the vital well-known actresses on the earth. She had commanded eight-figure salaries for years. How may she presumably be quick on money and supposedly dwelling “paycheck to paycheck.” And the way do these rumors result in Brad demanding to see her tax returns right this moment???
Château Miraval
Let’s step again for a second.
Again in 2011, Brad and Angelina purchased a French winery referred to as Château Miraval. Even when the title doesn’t instantly ring a bell, there’s a respectable probability you’ve gotten seen the bottle. Miraval produces the rosé of the identical title that’s offered in wine retailers, eating places, grocery shops, and high-end markets all over the world.
This was not only a romantic superstar trip house within the south of France. It was a 1,000-acre property, a marriage venue, a wine label, and an actual enterprise. Pitt and Jolie had been married there in 2014. The property additionally had an extended historical past as a recording studio, with artists like Pink Floyd, Sting, and The Cranberries having recorded there earlier than the Brangelina period.
Chateau Miraval (MICHEL GANGNE/AFP through Getty Photos)
The Tax Return Battle
After the break up, Miraval turned one of the vital beneficial and emotionally charged belongings of their divorce. Pitt says he poured years of labor into turning the wine model right into a critical world enterprise. He additionally says he and Jolie had an settlement that neither would promote their stake with out the opposite’s approval.
Jolie noticed issues in a different way. In 2021, she offered her 50% stake in Miraval to Tenute del Mondo, the wine division of the Stoli Group, for a reported $64 million. Stoli is managed by Russian-born billionaire Yuri Shefler. Pitt was livid. He sued in 2022, claiming Jolie had violated their settlement and deliberately offered her stake to an outdoor social gathering he didn’t need as a enterprise companion.
That sale is the guts of the case. And now it has led to a combat over Jolie’s tax returns.
In response to current court docket filings, Pitt’s attorneys are in search of paperwork exhibiting Jolie’s revenue and profit-participation funds from 2017 by means of 2019. That interval issues as a result of it covers the years after their 2016 separation, Jolie’s buy of a serious Los Angeles house, and the lead-up to her eventual sale of her stake in Miraval.
Pitt’s facet argues that Jolie has made her monetary situation related by claiming she lacked significant financial alternate options and wanted to promote her curiosity in Miraval to realize monetary independence. His attorneys argue that if Jolie had substantial revenue and different assets throughout that interval, these information may immediately undermine her declare that Pitt left her with no significant various however to promote her stake to Stoli.
$33 Million Maleficent Payday
Pitt’s staff additionally pointed to Jolie’s Hollywood incomes energy. Of their submitting, they argued that Jolie was a globally acknowledged actress who had commanded extraordinary compensation for main studio work, together with reported compensation of roughly $33 million for “Maleficent,” which made her the highest-paid actress in Hollywood that yr.
Jolie’s facet says that may be a mischaracterization. Her attorneys argue she by no means claimed she was broke, by no means claimed she was unable to assist herself, and by no means made common monetary misery central to the case. Of their telling, monetary independence meant precisely that: untangling her funds from Pitt after the tip of their marriage.
That’s the core dispute. Pitt says her funds matter as a result of she claimed she lacked significant financial alternate options. Jolie says Pitt is making an attempt to show a private and authorized have to separate from an ex-husband right into a false declare that she stated she was poor.
A choose has not but dominated on whether or not Jolie should flip over the extra information.
Kevin Winter/Getty Photos
The place Did The “Money-Strapped” Declare Come From?
The “cash-strapped” story didn’t start with a transparent assertion from Jolie that she was broke. It started with tabloid protection in 2018, when studies claimed she was “dwelling paycheck to paycheck” after taking a break from blockbuster appearing to concentrate on directing, humanitarian work, and elevating her kids.
The argument was that Jolie’s directing tasks had been creatively significant however not huge private paydays. Performing in a serious Disney franchise was the actual cash engine. In response to that model of the story, “Maleficent 2” mattered as a result of it represented Jolie’s first huge appearing test in years.
The extra grounded model was all the time about liquidity. An individual will be terribly rich and nonetheless have difficult cash-flow points if their wealth is tied up in actual property, investments, trusts, shared belongings, authorized payments, and future studio funds. That doesn’t make the individual broke. It makes the individual’s funds difficult.
And Jolie’s funds had been unquestionably difficult after her break up from Pitt.
The $8 Million Home Mortgage
One of the crucial necessary info from the divorce combat concerned Jolie’s post-split house.
After separating from Pitt, Jolie bought the historic Cecil B. DeMille property in Los Feliz for roughly $25 million (she just lately listed this mansion for $30 million). Courtroom filings later revealed that Pitt loaned Jolie $8 million to assist her purchase the property. Pitt’s facet additionally stated he had paid greater than $1.3 million in payments for Jolie and their six kids.
Jolie’s facet pushed again arduous on the framing. Her attorneys argued that the $8 million was an interest-bearing mortgage, not little one assist, and that Pitt had not paid a justifiable share of the kids’s ongoing bills.
Nonetheless, the existence of that mortgage fed the general public narrative that Jolie may need been below monetary stress. If one of the vital well-known ladies in Hollywood wanted an $8 million mortgage from her ex to purchase a home, folks naturally questioned what was happening behind the scenes.
Once more, that doesn’t imply she was broke. But it surely did give the “cash-strapped” rumor one thing to latch onto.
Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Photos
The $80 Million Divorce-Period Cash Path
The irony is that, by the point Pitt and Jolie lastly settled their divorce in late 2024, Jolie had been tied to a sequence of very massive post-split transactions.
In January 2025, studies claimed Jolie was roughly $80 million richer from divorce-era asset strikes. That quantity shouldn’t be understood as Brad writing Angelina an $80 million settlement test. It seems to come back principally from two main gross sales.
First, Jolie offered a Winston Churchill portray that Pitt had given her as a present. The portray, “Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque,” offered at Christie’s in 2021 for $11.5 million.
Second, and much more importantly, Jolie offered her 50% stake in Château Miraval to Tenute del Mondo, the wine division of the Stoli Group, for a reported $64 million.
That Miraval sale is the rationale Pitt and Jolie are nonetheless in court docket.
Why Château Miraval Is Nonetheless A Drawback
Pitt and Jolie purchased Château Miraval after they had been nonetheless collectively. It was not only a trip house. It was a French property, a vineyard, a model, and, not less than in accordance with Pitt’s facet, a household legacy they supposed to move right down to their kids.
Pitt claims he spent years constructing Miraval right into a beneficial wine enterprise. He additionally claims he and Jolie had an settlement that neither would promote their curiosity with out the opposite’s approval.
Jolie denies that she wanted Pitt’s permission. Her facet has argued that promoting her stake was a part of separating herself financially from him after years of litigation and private turmoil.
That’s the reason the tax returns matter to Pitt. His attorneys wish to take a look at whether or not Jolie really lacked significant financial alternate options or whether or not she had loads of assets and selected to promote Miraval for different causes. Jolie’s attorneys say that isn’t a good studying of her place. They are saying she wished independence from Pitt, not rescue from poverty.
