Brad Pitt Demands Angelina Jolie's Secret Texts In $64M Showdown
In his latest court filing, Pitt's legal team is pushing to obtain communications between Jolie and Stoli Group executive Alexei Oliynik, arguing that those messages are essential to determining whether Jolie breached their agreement by secretly selling her stake.
With an estimated $64 million at the center of this dispute, the situation has taken a deeply personal and revealing turn.
On June 30, Pitt filed a motion in Los Angeles Superior Court seeking access to private texts exchanged between his ex-wife and Oliynik, with key insight into the 2021 Miraval transaction.
In court documents obtained by PEOPLE Magazine, Pitt claimed that the actress sold her 50% stake to the Stoli Group through a shell company, Nouvel LLC, which he described as her 'alter ego' used to evade their agreement, which required mutual consent for any sale.
The 61-year-old also requested that the court compel Nouvel LLC to participate in a deposition regarding their initial investment in the winery.
In the latest filing, Pitt's lawyers revealed that Oliynik has refused to produce documents or sit for a deposition, citing Swiss residency.
The Miraval sale has been at the heart of a bitter legal fight that dates back to 2021.
The 'Maleficent' star's sale triggered a lawsuit from Pitt in June 2022, as he alleged that she breached their mutual agreement that any transfer of shares required joint consent.
The 'Fight Club' actor also accused Jolie of harming the reputation of their shared wine business, Château Miraval, by selling her stake to what he described as a 'stranger.'
Pitt claimed the move was done with the intent to 'inflict harm' on him, asserting that they had previously agreed never to sell their respective shares without each other's consent.
He emphasized that Miraval had become his 'passion' project, and he had invested years of work into turning it into a global success.
The Hollywood star's legal team argued that the actress 'contributed nothing to Miraval's success.'
They claimed Jolie went behind his back to complete the deal, intentionally breaching their agreement.
In September 2022, Jolie countersued for over $250 million, accusing Pitt of launching a 'vindictive war' over the vineyard.
'These counterclaims lay bare the true nature of Pitt's egregious misconduct. To be clear, it is Pitt, and not Jolie, Nouvel, or any of the other Defendants, who has acted in a hostile, destructive, and illegal manner. Pitt's behavior has caused serious harm to Nouvel,' the court documents read.
According to the filing, the 50-year-old had reportedly spent several months negotiating with Pitt's team to sell him her share of the French winery.
However, the talks allegedly fell apart when Pitt made what the filing describes as an 'eleventh-hour demand' for 'onerous and irrelevant conditions.'
Among them was a proposed clause that would have barred Jolie from publicly discussing the circumstances surrounding the breakdown of their marriage.
Unwilling to accept the 'hush clause,' the filmmaker instead sold her stake to Tenute del Mondo, a subsidiary of the Stoli Group.
Nearly two years later, Jolie asked Pitt to end the acrimony by dropping the lawsuit against her.
Jolie's lawyer, Paul Murphy, said the movie star wanted to 'put their family on a clear path towards healing.'
However, sources revealed the 'F1' actor had 'no intentions' of dropping the suit.
Speaking to the Daily Mail in a July 2024 interview, the insider revealed Jolie only made the request after realizing her legal backing wasn't strong enough.
According to them, Jolie only wanted to paint herself as 'the victim.'
'She is realizing that she does not have a strong case anymore, and she also knows that she may likely have to shell out the money by order of the courts. Bringing very personal issues into a business lawsuit is backfiring on her,' they added.
Months later, Jolie and Pitt officially finalized their bitter divorce on December 30, 2024, concluding a legal battle that began in 2016 with the mom of six citing irreconcilable differences.
Jolie's lawyer James Simon made the announcement via a statement to PEOPLE.
'More than eight years ago, Angelina filed for divorce from Mr. Pitt. She and the children left all of the properties they had shared with Mr. Pitt, and since that time, she has focused on finding peace and healing for their family. This is just one part of a long ongoing process that started eight years ago. Frankly, Angelina is exhausted, but she is relieved this one part is over,' he said.
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Kamala Harris isn't running for California governor. Is Rick Caruso?
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'Everything clicked up a notch, maybe two notches, as far as the excitement level. But in terms of a plan, it's going to be a while.' The signals from Caruso world that suggest he is in no rush to declare reflects the billionaire's luxury of time, given his ability to self-fund. So far, Caruso has taken a deliberate approach. He has polled both races and spent the last five or six months traversing California on a listening tour with prominent political donors, including tech entrepreneurs, gathering their input on key issues and their thoughts about outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom. Caruso has often acted and sounded like a man still running for mayor, lambasting Bass over her faltering response to the January wildfires, which ignited while she was out of the country. But in recent weeks, Bass has found some footing, rallying her base against the Trump administration's sweeping immigration raids and presiding over a steady reduction in homelessness. 'After the fires, the prevailing wisdom was Karen Bass was politically vulnerable and Caruso was a prime opponent to run against her — six months later she's seen as handling the ICE raids in LA very well and her political standing is much better than it was,' said Kevin Liao, a Los Angeles-based political consultant who has worked in the California statehouse. 'Governor appears like a path he'd have a more realistic chance of winning.' In 2022, Caruso ran for mayor as a business-savvy outsider willing to defy an ossified political establishment. He sought to win over working-class and Latino voters disillusioned with the city's pervasive homelessness problem and spiraling cost of living. It was not enough to win in deep-blue Los Angeles, where Bass enjoyed the backing of labor unions and was well known to voters and political power brokers after years in Congress. But some observers believe there is an audience for a similar message in the 2026 governor's race after California Democrats lost ground in 2024. 'Many Californians, including lifelong Democrats, are looking for change in California,' said Sam Yebri, a nonprofit executive and head of a centrist political group who supports Caruso. 'Voters in this moment want someone who will deliver real results for the average Californian, not someone who will just kick and scream and stomp around about the Trump administration.' A governor's race would offer new insight into how Caruso defines his political identity. His past affiliation with the GOP has led many stalwart Democrats to view him skeptically and his party shape-shifting was used as a cudgel against him in the 2022 race against Bass. But Caruso has since tried to shore up his bona fides as a Democrat, including donating to the party's House candidates last cycle and co-hosting a Joe Biden fundraiser. A visit to Caruso's office has also become a rite of passage for would-be 2028 Democratic presidential aspirants in Los Angeles to raise money and rub shoulders with Hollywood's elite. Caruso would also hold an important asset in a prohibitively expensive statewide race. He could draw on his considerable fortune to counter the family wealth of Eleni Kounalakis and small-dollar appeal of former Rep. Katie Porter. 'Think of the governor's race as a congested freeway — Rick has the resources to at least clear a lane for himself,' said former Los Angeles Councilmember Mike Bonin, who now directs the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs. He could also seize the moderate lane from contenders like former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who would be vying for a similar base without being able to marshal Caruso's resources. But money isn't everything, as Caruso's 2022 bid showed. In an overwhelmingly blue state where many Democratic base voters are itching for combat with a hostile Trump administration, Caruso may not have a message for the moment. 'The shoals of California politics are littered with the wrecks of rich centrists who try to run for higher office,' said Mike Shimpock, a Southern California political consultant. 'There's always this belief that there's some secret centrist path to the governorship. I find it akin to the yellow brick road: It doesn't really exist.'
