A lot of English-language media outlets are (willfully) misreporting what’s happening with Brad Pitt and Chateau Miraval. In 2021, Angelina Jolie successfully sold her half (Nouvel) of the Miraval business to a Stoli subsidiary, Tenute del Mondo. Stoli is owned by Yuri Shefler, so when you hear anything about “Nouvel did this” or “Nouvel is suing Pitt,” it’s Yuri Shefler and his business, NOT Angelina. Separately, Angelina and Brad are suing each other over the sale of Nouvel. But that’s not what this story is about – this is about the current owner of Nouvel, Yuri Shefler, and how he’s not playing games with Brad Pitt. Shefler/Nouvel has filed new charges against Pitt in a California court. Pitt has “looted” the Miraval business, defrauded Nouvel, hidden Miraval assets and attempted to cut Tenute del Mondo out of Miraval’s operations. From the Financial Times:

Brad Pitt “looted” the Château Miraval vineyard he co-owned with ex-wife Angelina Jolie in Provence, spending millions of dollars in profits on swimming pool renovations and a recording studio, lawyers suing the actor have claimed.

Nouvel, a company through which Jolie previously owned a stake in the French winery, said in a filing to a court in California on Monday that it was owed more than $350mn by Pitt and his partners. The company alleged they “engaged in increasingly outrageous actions to retain control” of Château Miraval, while allegedly “stripping [the rosé producer] of its assets”.

The allegations that Pitt acted like a “petulant child” while engaging in a “blatant money grab” are the latest salvo in a bitter legal feud between the Hollywood stars, who filed for divorce in acrimonious circumstances in 2016, with Jolie accusing Pitt of a drunken attack on her and the couple’s children while on a private flight to the US.

Since the divorce, Pitt has “masterminded a so-far-successful plan to seize de facto control of Château Miraval”, Nouvel’s lawyers claimed on Monday, alleging that he had frozen Shefler’s Stoli out of running the company by refusing to appoint neutral directors to the board of the Luxembourg-based entity through which the vineyard operates.

Lawyers for Pitt had previously accused Shefler and Stoli of attempting a “hostile takeover” of the vineyard, where the two actors were married. Pitt also maintains he still owns 60 per cent of the estate, claiming he only “nominally” transferred 10 per cent to Jolie in 2013. Nouvel’s legal team said Jolie had initially tried to sell her share of Miraval to Pitt, but walked away because he made the deal contingent on her signing a non-disparagement agreement.

They further alleged that Pitt has “wasted the company’s assets, spending millions on vanity projects, including more than $1mn on swimming pool renovations, building and rebuilding a staircase four times, and spending millions to restore a recording studio”. They added that Pitt spent “nearly a million euros a year constantly rebuilding stone walls using stone masons from Croatia”, and close to €3mn on unspecified expenses such as “garment work”.

In Monday’s filing, Shefler’s company accused Pitt’s team of launching a “xenophobic, untrue smear campaign worthy of Putin himself” against the Russian-born entrepreneur, who they said had been forced into exile by his criticism of the Kremlin and had stood up for LGBT rights.

Nouvel claimed Pitt also turned over half the value of Miraval’s trademarks to Perrin, without the express permission of Jolie’s former holding company, which is a joint-owner. The trademarks were originally registered ahead of a potential joint venture with luxury goods group LVMH, Nouvel said in court documents, although no such deal ever went ahead.

They disputed that Pitt, who has won Academy Awards as a producer and actor, had been deeply devoted to viticulture. “Pitt is an actor, not a winemaker. He deals in illusions, not dirt and grapes,” they wrote.

[From Financial Times]

Buried within Vanity Fair’s extensive report on the Miraval battle royale was the admission that yes, the French authorities raided Miraval and Shefler – and the French government – now Miraval’s business records and they have a better look at Pitt’s years-long mismanagement of Miraval, how much money Pitt has wasted, how many “deals” Pitt made without informing Nouvel (before and after Nouvel’s sale). All of this has barely been reported in the English-language press, but it’s interesting that Shefler is apparently taking this to court in California. My prediction is that when all of this is over, Yuri Shefler is going to fully own Miraval and Shefler is going to win a defamation lawsuit against Pitt.

These are photos of Pitt and his plastic surgery at the British Grand Prix over the weekend, where he was filming scenes for his new film, Apex.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.