Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s $350m Legal Battle Over French Vineyard

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt may have ended their marriage in 2016 and “legally separated” in 2019, but the ongoing legal feud between the former Hollywood power couple continues to stew.

The couple have gone head-to-head in court over a $350 million lawsuit involving their wine estate, Château Miraval, with Angelina’s former investment company, Nouvel, suing Brad for allegedly trying to destroy the business.

In a counterargument, Benjamin Button actor Brad claims to have invested millions into the winery over the years, which has become one of the world’s top producers of rosé wine. The star still owns his share of the estate and is said to have formed a close bond with A-list neighbors George and Amal Clooney.

Despite the property being tainted with a searing legal battle and ongoing hostility between the pair, life at Château Miraval was once a fairytale chapter in the couple’s love story with their six kids: Maddox, 22, Pax, 20, Zahara, 19, Shiloh, 18, and twins Vivienne and Knox, who just turned 16.

Here’s everything we know about the breathtaking 1,300-acre estate now worth over $500 million…

Combining their other-worldly wealth, the former Hollywood power couple bought a sprawling estate in the south of France for $28.4 million (£22.4 million) in 2008.

Château Miraval became the backdrop to Brad and Angelina’s love story, with Brad choosing the breathtaking vineyard as the setting for his romantic proposal to his Mr & Mrs Smith co-star in 2012.

The duo went on to host their secret wedding on the estate, which is said to have taken place in a small chapel in a private ceremony, attended only by their closest family and friends.

The idyllic French hideaway, nestled in the beautiful Provence countryside, features a lake and a working vineyard – used by the couple to produce their award-winning rosé wine of the same name – a swimming pool, an oak forest, an olive grove, and a moat.

Their family home, located at the end of a three-mile-long drive, offered exactly the sort of privacy they sought away from the bright lights of Hollywood. The château, complete with 35 bedrooms and 1,300 acres of breathtaking grounds, no doubt provided an epic space to raise their six children.

The Bullet Train actor formerly said he wanted to make the estate “a European base for our family…where our kids could run free and not be subjected to the celebrity of Hollywood.”

As reported by The Mercury News, the property was described as a “wonderland” of vineyards, olive and oak trees, lavender fields, a lake and ancient stone buildings.

When the stars moved to the French Riviera, Tom Bove, Château Miraval’s previous owner, told Vanity Fair that he watched an “armada” of “vans and vans,” bring the family’s possessions from the US.

Brad and Angelina weren’t alone at the estate, reportedly moving in with “nannies, from Vietnam, the Congo, and the US,” along with two personal assistants; “a cook; a maid; two cleaners; a plongeur, or busboy; (and) four close-protection bodyguards.”

Brad and Angelina’s twins, Knox Jolie-Pitt and Vivienne Jolie, who recently dropped her father’s famous last name, were born in France.

It was reported at the time that the couple chose their European bolthole as the twins’ birthplace because of the unrivalled privacy their estate offered, along with French privacy laws which forbid publications from publishing children’s faces.