Brad Pitt accused of hiding 'embezzled property' amid legal battle with Angelina Jolie

Brad Pitt is accused of hiding embezzled assets in his legal fight with ex-wife Angelina Jolie over their French winery, Chateau Miraval. The couple bought the property in 2008 to build a business for their kids but has been battling in court over it since 2022.

The dispute revolves around who owns the winery and its assets. Brad Pitt's Mondo Bongo LLC and Angelina Jolie's Nouvel LLC each used their investment companies to buy Quimicum, the parent company of Chateau Miraval.

In 2021, Angelina Jolie told Brad Pitt via email that she wanted to leave the business. Pitt then offered $54.4 million to buy out her shares in the winery, but the deal fell through. Instead, Jolie sold her shares to the Stoli Group, owned by Russian billionaire Yuri Shefler, for $64 million. Pitt is suing, claiming Jolie broke an agreement that required mutual consent before selling shares to a third party.

Angelina Jolie has denied all accusations of wrongdoing in the ongoing legal fight. Her company, Nouvel, filed a countersuit against Brad Pitt for $250 million, claiming he excluded them from the business and treated the winery like his own personal property. In return, Pitt accused Stoli, the company that bought Jolie’s shares, of trying to take over the business.

In May, Stoli’s subsidiary, Tenute del Mondo, filed a second countersuit with similar claims. Tenute accused Brad Pitt and his company, Mondo Bongo, of "embezzling property" by secretly using Miraval's assets for "vanity projects" in France that had no real business purpose, according to InTouch Weekly.

The Tenute lawsuit stated that Brad Pitt used Chateau Miraval's funds for his personal expenses and diverted the money to his other business ventures instead of paying dividends and loan repayments through Quimicum to Mondo Bongo and Nouvel, which would have ultimately benefited both him and Angelina. The lawsuit also claims that this illegal activity continued and worsened after Angelina sold Nouvel to Tenute, the wine-making division of the Stoli Group.