Angelina Jolie through her attorney is asking her ex Brad Pitt to “end the fighting” by dropping his lawsuit against her regarding their winery, People Magazine reports.
Pitt sued Angelina Jolie after she sold away her half of Château Miraval for $67 million in October 2021. He argued that the sale went against a verbal agreement they had. Jolie’s side has said she refused to let him buy her out of the business because she didn’t want to sign his NDA as part of the deal.
In the latest development, Angelina Jolie formally requested that Pitt disclose third-party communications he had in the aftermath of the 2016 plane ride incident that led to their divorce. Pitt’s lawyers called her request “intrusive” and a “sensationalist fishing expedition,” asking the judge to deny it, according to the report by People Magazine.
In a July 17 statement obtained by People magazine, Jolie’s lawyer Paul Murphy claims Pitt, in his past offer to buy Jolie’s stake in the winery, “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,” added Murphy, saying, “We are not at all surprised Mr. Pitt is afraid to turn over the documents demonstrating these facts.”
“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,” Murphy says.
According to Pitt’s lawyers in a recent court filing, the third-party communications Jolie’s team are requesting deal with “sensitive issues” (including “therapy he voluntarily undertook after the flight incident in an effort to better himself”) and feature some of “his most trusted advisors.” They claimed Jolie “wants them anyway as part of her efforts to turn this business dispute into a re-litigation of the former couple’s divorce case.”
A source close to Pitt told People magazine that his recent filing speaks for itself.
In May, a judge ruled that Angelina Jolie must produce eight years’ worth of non-disclosure agreements she has made. By having her disclose her history of NDAs, his side hopes to illustrate that it’s a standard business practice.
Back in May, Murphy said they are “more than happy to” turn over those “common NDAs” since they “are simply not comparable to Mr. Pitt’s last-second demand to try and cover up his personal misconduct.”
He added that the ruling “opens the door to discovery on all issues related to Pitt’s abuse” and “we welcome that transparency in all parties’ discovery responses.”
A source close to Pitt, though, said at the time that the ruling was a “significant blow to the credibility” of Jolie’s claims, as well as a “strong statement challenging them to match their rhetoric with actual facts, which they consistently have been not been able to do.”