Brad Pitt's legal team filed a motion demanding Angelina Jolie turn over financial records from 2017 through 2019 in their long-running Château Miraval winery dispute, arguing she put her own finances at issue and now refuses to back it up.
The July 31 filing, obtained by USA TODAY, accuses Jolie of withholding income information for three critical years following the couple's 2016 separation. Pitt's attorneys argue that Jolie herself placed her financial condition squarely before the court through her own prior claims, and that she cannot now refuse to produce the records that would let the other side examine those claims.
The motion marks the latest escalation in a lawsuit Pitt first filed in February 2022, after Jolie sold her stake in the French winery to an outside investment firm without his consent. A trial is not expected until August 2027, but the discovery fight over Jolie's finances could shape the case long before a jury hears it.
Pitt's attorneys built their argument on Jolie's own words. In earlier filings, Jolie alleged she needed to sell her interest in Château Miraval to obtain "financial independence" from Pitt. She also claimed she "largely put her career on hold, forgoing years of compensation in the process" after their 2016 split, and attributed Pitt's "substantial leverage and control" over her to "her financial condition at that time."
Those allegations, Pitt's lawyers contend, put Jolie's finances directly at issue. Her financial information was only protected, they wrote, "unless you put it at issue." By making claims about lost income and financial dependence, Jolie "opened the door" for her 2017 through 2019 records to be turned over.
Jolie's legal team fired back in a June response, calling the entire basis for Pitt's demand a fabrication. Her attorneys told the court:
"The entire basis for Pitt compelling these answers is a made-up theory that Jolie did not allege."
Her lawyers drew a sharp line between seeking financial independence from an ex-spouse and claiming financial distress in general. Jolie's attorneys argued that Pitt's team selectively quoted her filings to manufacture a broader claim she never made:
"Jolie does not allege that she was seeking financial independence in the abstract; she alleges that she was seeking 'financial independence from her ex-husband [Pitt].' Separating from one's ex-husband is categorically different from an allegation that one is suffering general financial distress."
Her team added that Jolie "has never alleged that she was in financial distress" and that the distinction between untangling finances from a former spouse and claiming poverty is "dispositive", meaning, in their view, it should settle the question entirely.
Jolie's attorneys noted that she already produced income and tax statements from 2020 and 2021, despite having "no obligation to do so." But they argued that reaching back any further into 2017 through 2019 would constitute "a serious invasion of Jolie's privacy rights."
Pitt's side sees the gap differently. If Jolie was willing to produce records for 2020 and 2021, the refusal to cover the three years immediately following the separation, the very period she claims she sacrificed income and lacked financial independence, looks less like a principled privacy stand and more like an effort to keep unfavorable information out of the record.
The personal toll of the broader split between Pitt and Jolie has extended well beyond the courtroom. Five of the couple's six children have moved to drop Pitt's surname, a reflection of just how fractured the family has become since the 2016 separation.
A June discovery conference offered a potential middle ground. The court proposed limiting the scope of Jolie's testimony about her earnings and compensation in future proceedings. Jolie declined. Pitt's team seized on that refusal as further evidence that Jolie wants to make financial claims without submitting to financial scrutiny.
Pitt, now 62, and Jolie, 51, jointly purchased Château Miraval in 2008. They married at the French estate in 2014 after roughly a decade together. Two years later, in 2016, they separated.
Jolie sold her stake in the winery to an investment firm in 2021. Pitt's February 2022 lawsuit alleges she did so without his consent. The identity of the purchasing firm has not been disclosed in the available court filings.
The divorce itself was finalized separately. AP News reported that a Los Angeles Superior Court judge approved a divorce settlement after more than eight years, with both parties waiving future spousal support. But that settlement did not resolve the Château Miraval lawsuit, which continues on its own track. A judge had declared the couple legally single back in 2019, though asset division and custody required separate proceedings.
Jolie's attorney James Simon said at the time of the divorce settlement that Jolie was "exhausted, but she is relieved this one part is over." The winery fight, clearly, is not over.
Meanwhile, Pitt has moved forward publicly with his personal life. He and Ines de Ramon made their relationship Instagram official earlier this year.
Jolie, for her part, has said she hasn't dated in a decade since the split, describing herself as "broken", a characterization that underscores the personal weight she has placed on the aftermath of the separation.
The financial records dispute follows another significant discovery loss for Jolie. A judge previously ruled in Pitt's favor and ordered Jolie to turn over 22 previously undisclosed documents, including private messages. Jolie's team had argued those communications were shielded by attorney-client privilege, but Pitt's lawyers successfully argued they were messages with personal aides, financial advisers and public-relations consultants, not attorneys.
Legal experts quoted by Fox News described those documents in stark terms. Brett Ward, a partner at the law firm Blank Rome, said the intensity of Jolie's effort to shield them suggested they could be damaging:
"Generally speaking, the bigger the effort to protect documents, the more important they are. So, given Jolie's significant effort to protect them, I would expect that these private messages weaken Jolie's position in the case, perhaps fatally."
Family law attorney Patrick Baghdaserians went further, calling the documents potentially "the proverbial smoking gun to undermine Angelina Jolie's case."
Pitt's professional life has continued at full speed through the litigation. His racing film F1 won an Oscar, though not without mixed reviews, Jodie Foster said the movie felt like it was "built by a machine."
No ruling on Pitt's July 31 motion has been reported. USA TODAY reached out to representatives for both Pitt and Jolie for comment but did not note any responses. The trial remains set for August 2027.
The pattern in this case is consistent. Jolie's legal team makes broad claims about her financial sacrifices and dependence on Pitt during and after the marriage. When Pitt's side asks to see the numbers behind those claims, Jolie's team calls the request invasive and manufactured. The court has already sided with Pitt on the question of the 22 withheld documents. Whether it does so again on the income records could determine whether Jolie's financial narrative survives contact with her actual financial history.
If you're going to tell a court you gave up income and lacked independence, the other side has every right to ask you to prove it, and a refusal to do so tells its own story.
