Court Orders Discovery Disclosure in Ongoing Château Miraval Dispute Between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie

In the latest development of the protracted legal battle over the French estate Château Miraval, a 1,200-acre Provence property located in the village of Correns, noted as France's first 100% organic village, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge has issued a procedural ruling regarding the exchange of evidence.

In court documents obtained by USA TODAY on Wednesday, Dec. 17, Judge Lia Martin granted a motion to compel discovery, requiring Angelina Jolie to produce unredacted versions of specific communications that her legal team had previously argued were protected by privilege. The ruling was issued on December 17, 2025, just one day before Brad Pitt's 62nd birthday.

The ruling, which comes as the former couple continues to litigate the 2021 sale of Jolie's stake in the winery, gives the actress 45 days to produce unredacted versions of communications exchanged between non-attorneys in 22 documents.

These records, which were identified on Jolie's February 14, 2025 privilege log, include correspondence involving her personal staff and business advisors, as well as internal discussions regarding the strategic decisions leading up to her sale of her interests held through her investment company, Nouvel LLC.

While legal representatives for Brad Pitt characterised the decision as a step toward 'transparency,' claiming that the emails would prove Jolie 'has been disingenuous since the start regarding her true intentions about selling her share of the business to Stoli,' Jolie's counsel has strongly criticised the order as an infringement on legal protections and a continuation of what they describe as a pattern of harassment.

Jolie's legal team, led by attorney Paul Murphy, issued a statement expressing their position:

A Procedural Step, Not a Final Verdict

It is important to note that this discovery order is a procedural milestone and does not determine liability or wrongdoing. In California civil litigation, discovery rulings serve to ensure both parties have access to potentially relevant information before a case goes to trial.

California's privilege laws generally protect communications between an attorney and client (attorney-client privilege) and work product prepared in anticipation of litigation. The court's ruling specifically focused on communications between Jolie and non-attorney individuals, which may fall outside these protections.

The documents in question relate to the period surrounding Jolie's sale of her 50% stake—held through her holding company Nouvel LLC—to Tenute del Mondo, the wine division of the Stoli Group, a Luxembourg-based spirits manufacturer controlled by Russian billionaire Yuri Shefler.The sale, completed in October 2021, was valued at approximately $64 million.

Pitt's legal team alleges the sale violated a mutual agreement (which they claim was both verbal and contained in a written 2013 operating agreement) that neither would sell without the other's consent—a claim Jolie has consistently denied, stating that Pitt never memorialised any such agreement in writing prior to the lawsuit, and that any alleged verbal understanding was not enforceable.

Contested Narratives and the 'Abuse' Allegations

Central to the broader dispute is the breakdown of negotiations between the former couple. According to court filings, Jolie initially offered to sell her interest to Pitt for $54.4 million.

The proposed deal was structured as a payment plan spread over six years, with $46 million due upfront and the remaining $8.5 million to be paid in installments. However, her legal team maintains that these negotiations collapsed because Pitt conditioned the deal on an expansive four-year non-disclosure agreement (NDA).

Jolie's counsel, Paul Murphy, alleges that the NDA was a 'coercive demand' designed to prevent Jolie from speaking publicly about allegations of physical and emotional abuse involving Pitt and their children during a 2016 private jet flight on September 14, 2016.

In this incident, which took place during a flight from their Château Miraval estate in France to Los Angeles, Jolie has alleged that Pitt engaged in verbally abusive and physically aggressive behavior toward her and their six children. Specific allegations include that Pitt grabbed and shook her, pushed her against a wall, punched the plane's ceiling, and lunged at one of their children.

Jolie further alleged that she sustained injuries to her back and elbow during the incident. Pitt has disputed these characterizations, stating that while he may have acted inappropriately, the allegations of physical violence toward the children are untrue.

While Pitt was investigated by both the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and not charged following that incident, Jolie's filings describe it as the catalyst for her divorce filing, which occurred five days later on September 19, 2016.

The FBI closed its investigation on November 22, 2016, announcing that no charges would be filed, and DCFS similarly concluded its investigation with no findings of abuse.

Jolie has stated in declarations that she found the demand for a broad NDA 'extremely painful' and viewed it as an attempt to 'bury' evidence of personal misconduct. According to her legal team, this was Pitt's way of ensuring that in exchange for buying her stake, she would be legally bound to silence regarding the alleged abuse.

The Stakes: Financial and Personal

The actor is seeking $35 million in damages, which his legal team claims represents alleged economic damages and reputational harm to the Miraval business resulting from Jolie's 2021 sale to Stoli.

Pitt's attorneys argue that Jolie's sale to what they characterize as an 'aggressive third party' was intended to undermine his control of the brand and deprive him of his right to enjoy his private home and oversee the business he claims to have built and developed.

Conversely, Jolie's investment company, Nouvel LLC, filed a countersuit seeking $350 million in damages,claiming that Pitt has systematically excluded her from the business they built together, has 'masterminded a so-far-successful plan to seize control of Château Miraval,' treating it as his 'personal fiefdom,' claiming he has refused to share financial information, distribute profits, or repay tens of millions of dollars she invested in the property.

Jolie's lawsuit further alleges that Pitt has diverted assets and funds from Château Miraval to personal vanity projects, including spending over $1 million on swimming pool renovations and rebuilding a staircase four times at his insistence, at the expense of the business's profitability.

Legal Timeline

In March 2024, a Los Angeles judge dismissed five of the seven claims Pitt had originally asserted against Jolie, significantly narrowing the scope of his legal challenge.

Of the claims that remain, two are particularly significant: (1) Pitt's claim that he and Jolie had a secret, unwritten, unspoken implied contract whereby she could not sell her interest in Miraval without his consent, and (2) a claim for quantum meruit based on the notion that Pitt did more work and invested more capital in Miraval than Jolie.

The court dismissed claims brought under Luxembourg law, along with tort claims that could have resulted in punitive damages.

Jolie has previously characterised the winery lawsuit as 'frivolous,' and her legal team continues to maintain that she and Pitt did not have 'a secret, unwritten, unspoken contract' requiring consent before selling their shares. Her legal filings describe Pitt's actions as a 'vindictive war' against her following their separation, characterized by years-long efforts to harass and control her.

As the 45-day deadline approaches, the focus remains on whether these unredacted communications will support Pitt's claims of a secret deal or corroborate Jolie's assertion that the third-party sale to the Stoli Group was her only viable exit from a business partnership she found increasingly untenable, after Pitt allegedly refused to buy her out unless she signed a restrictive NDA designed to silence her regarding abuse allegations.