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Brad Pitt can sue a Russian billionaire who bought a 50 percent stake in a French winery from Angelina Jolie in the wake of their messy divorce, a state appeals court has ruled.
The couple purchased the 1,200-acre winery in the South of France where they married, Chateau Miraval, in 2008. Jolie planned to sell her half to Pitt until negotiations broke down over his insistence that she sign a nondisclosure agreement barring her from publicizing allegations of abuse leading up to their split. That includes an altercation in 2016 on a private plane in which she claimed that Pitt “grabbed her by the head and shook her,” “choked one of the children” and “struck another in the face.”
Jolie balked at the term and struck a $64 million deal with the billionaire alcohol magnate, Yuri Shefler. Pitt in 2022 filed a lawsuit, claiming that the actress reneged on an unwritten agreement that they wouldn’t sell their stakes in the business without the other’s consent. Shefler’s involvement in the case concerns allegations he orchestrated the acquisition in secret alongside Jolie to facilitate the breach of Pitt’s rights.
A California state court judge initially found that Shefler wasn’t sufficiently involved in the deal, meaning that he couldn’t be forced into the case because he was just a passive investor.
