Angelina Jolie's lawyers are asking Brad Pitt to withdraw his lawsuit amid their long and contentious legal battle.
The long and arduous battle over Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's French vineyard continues as lawyers for the actress are asking Pitt to "end the fighting" and withdraw his lawsuit.
The former couple has been locked in an extended legal battle over the Château Miraval property and winemaking ventures they purchased in 2008 and were 50-50 partners on until 2021 when Jolie made the decision to sell her share. Pitt later sued over the sale, arguing that the sale went against an agreement they'd previously come to, in which Pitt would buy out her shares.
In April 2024, Jolie's lawyers filed a motion in which they argued that Pitt had refused to buy Jolie's shares in the winery unless she agreed to sign a more expansive non-disclosure agreement (NDA) and claimed the NDA was an attempt by Pitt to "cover up" his abuse of her and their children. Pitt's lawyers vehemently denied those allegations.
Jolie's lawyer, Paul Murphy, released a statement to ET on Wednesday claiming that Pitt "tried to punish and control Angelina by demanding a newly expanded NDA to cover his personal misconduct and abuse."
"Those actions are central to these proceedings. We are not at all surprised Mr. Pitt is afraid to turn over the documents demonstrating these facts," Murphy continued. "While Angelina again asks Mr. Pitt to end the fighting and finally put their family on a clear path toward healing, unless Mr. Pitt withdraws his lawsuit, Angelina has no choice but to obtain the evidence necessary to prove his allegations wrong."
In court docs filed last week, Pitt's legal team accused Jolie and her legal team for "wide-ranging," "intrusive" and "harassing" tactics in their years-long lawsuit over their once shared winery in France.
ET is told that Jolie's team is leveraging her "NDA defense" to seek discovery into some of the most deeply personal aspects of her ex-husband’s life.
"This is a standard business dispute in which the other side chose to unnecessarily and irresponsibly inject personal issues that complicated and extended the legal process to no one's benefit," a source tells ET. "The other side introduced the relevancy of NDAs into this when they themselves asked for one. Now that the court is requiring them to introduce NDAs, they're upset."
Jolie -- who filed for divorce from Pitt in September 2016 after two years of marriage -- share six children: 22-year-old Maddox, 20-year-old Pax, 19-year-old Zahara, 18-year-old Shiloh and 15-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne.
In April, Jolie's lawyers filed the motion asking a court to compel Pitt and his legal team to provide "responses" and "documents" explaining why the Oscar-winning actor "suddenly conditioned his purchase of Jolie's share of Miraval on her agreeing to a greatly expanded NDA now covering Pitt's personal misconduct, whether related to Miraval or not."
Jolie's lawyers alleged in the motion that "Pitt's history of physical abuse of Jolie started well before the family's September 2016 plane trip from France to Los Angeles." However, the docs claim that "this flight marked the first time he turned his physical abuse on the children as well" and that "Jolie then immediately left him."
"The conduct is egregious and caused significant and ongoing post-traumatic stress," the documents allege. "At trial, Jolie will prove through testimony, emails, photographs, and other evidence why Pitt was so concerned about his own misconduct that he blew up his own deal to purchase Jolie’s interest in Miraval because she refused to agree to his new, expansive NDA. Some of that evidence is currently under Pitt's control. This is the evidence Jolie seeks by this motion."
In contrast, docs filed by Pitt's legal team in June 2023 claim that it was actually Jolie's team who requested a "broader" NDA, not him.
Additionally, a close friend of Pitt -- who is familiar with the litigation over the years -- told ET at the time that the latest claims of abuse are part of "a pattern of behavior" for Jolie and her legal team. The source claimed, "Whenever there is a decision that goes against the other side they consistently choose to introduce misleading, inaccurate and/or irrelevant information as a distraction."
With regard to why Jolie opted to never press criminal charges against Pitt, the docs claim, "Jolie never pressed charges as she believed the best course was for Pitt to accept responsibility and help the family recover from the post-traumatic stress he caused."
For more on the contentious and lengthy legal battle, see the video below.
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