January 2004: Filming on Mr. and Mrs. Smith began. According to the film’s director Doug Liman, the chemistry between Angelina and Brad was “immediate” from the first day of filming.

May 3, 2004: Us Weekly and Star reported on rumors of a “growing intimacy” between the two stars.

January 7, 2005: Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston announced to People Magazine that they have separated. Jennifer would file for divorce two months later on March 25.

April 19, 2005: Brad and Angelina vacationed together in Kenya, accompanied by Angelina’s son Maddox.

July 2005: Brangelina formally debuted in a now-infamous photoshoot for W Magazine called “Domestic Bliss,” supposedly conceptualized in part by Brad.

July 2005-July 2008: During this time frame, Brad formally adopted Angelina’s two children, Maddox (born 2001) and Pax (born 2003). The couple also added four more children to their family: Zahara (born 2005), Shiloh (born 2006), and Knox and Vivienne (both born 2008).

May 8, 2008: After visiting the property the year prior, Brad and Angelina purchased Chateau Miraval, a centuries-old winery in France for €25 million. The shares were split 60-40 between Brad’s holding company, Mondo Bongo and Angelina’s holding company Nouvel. Brad claims that at the time of the deal, the two made an agreement that neither Brad nor Angelina could sell their share without the consent of the other, however Angelina has denied this.

April 13, 2012: Brad and Angelina announced their engagement.

March 6, 2013: Miraval began selling its now-famous Miraval Rosé.

August 14, 2014: Brad and Angelina married, celebrating in a formal wedding 9 days later at Chateau Miraval. As part of his wedding gift to Angelina, Brad transferred 10% of his ownership in Miraval to her (for the sum of €1), making them equal-owners in the winery.

2015: According to Brad’s camp, Angelina and Brad began experiencing marital problems sometime this year. This same year, Angelina directed and released By the Sea. The film is about a couple, played by Angelina and Brad, who are undergoing serious marital problems.

Allegations of Abuse, Wine, and Russian Oligarchs

September 14, 2016 (TW: Domestic Abuse, Alcoholism): Angelina and a reportedly heavily-intoxicated Brad became involved in an altercation aboard their private jet, en route from France to LA. According to legal documents that were released in 2022, during an argument, Brad forced Angelina into the bathroom of the plane, where he “grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her, and then grabbed her shoulders and shook her again before pushing her into the bathroom wall.” Additionally, Brad punched the bathroom ceiling repeatedly, at which point Angelina left the room and returned to the children.

One of the children asked Angelina if she was alright, at which point Brad continued verbally abusing her. One child verbally defended Angelina, which prompted Brad to “lunge at the child,” While Angelina tried to grab Brad in an effort to stop him, Brad “threw himself” into the plane seats, injuring Angelina’s back and elbow. “Before it was over, Pitt choked one of the children and struck another in the face. Some of the children pleaded with Pitt to stop.”

According to the filing, “at one point, he poured beer on Jolie, at another, he poured beer and red wine on the children.”

When the plane landed, Brad allegedly prevented Angelina and the children from debarking the plane for twenty minutes. After they were finally able to exit, Brad again harmed Jolie and one of the children before they could leave. According to witnesses on the tarmac, Brad was seen verbally accosting Angelina and the children, with one claiming that his screaming on the plane could be heard “even before the doors opened.” According to Angelina, Brad caused $25,000 worth of damage to the plane’s interior.

According to a source in Brad’s camp:

“Brad was drinking, and the confrontation got out of hand. He was absolutely wrong in how he behaved but immediately ​apologized and ​acknowledged that he had crossed a line, which he will always regret, and right away took steps to address this and try to make amends.”

September 19, 2016: Angelina filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences and petitioning for sole custody of the six children. New York Post, in its signature melodrama, would mourn the relationship as “our last great Hollywood couple.”

September 22, 2016: TMZ reported that Brad is under investigation for child abuse. It would later come out that “all parties involved” chose not to pursue criminal charges due to “several factors.” Brad denied the allegations.

September 30, 2016: Angelina and Brad came to an agreement that Angelina would have full custody, and Brad would have visitation rights so long as he agreed to alcohol and drug testing and remained in counseling. Additionally, his first meeting with the children after the plane incident would be chaperoned by a therapist.

October 19, 2016: Brad had his first meeting with five of the children after the plane incident.

December 2016: Brad’s lawyers filed to keep the documents in the custody case sealed, claiming it was for the sake of the children. Angelina’s lawyers agreed to sealing the documents, however argued that Brad’s motivations were less for the children, and more for forcing Angelina to remain silent on what happened aboard the plane. These documents would eventually be unsealed in 2022.

October 2016-2017: Brad spent a year and a half in Alcoholics Anonymous, with support from Bradley Cooper. At some point during this time frame, Brad Pitt would later claim that Yuri Shefler, a Russian billionaire, approached him with an offer to buy Miraval for €60 million. We’ll get back to that.

June 2018: The custody agreement was amended to allow Brad more visitation with the children. Maddox, who was 16 at the time and allowed to choose for himself whether or not he would see Brad, declined.

April 12, 2019: Angelina and Brad were ruled as “legally single”, although arguments regarding custody continued. Both parties eventually agreed to a private trial. As of October 2022, the two have not become officially divorced. No, I don’t know what the difference between legally single and divorced is, either.

June 19, 2020: Angelina alluded to the plane incident and articles about her children speculated to be planted by Brad's camp, stating in an interview with Vogue India:

I separated for the wellbeing of my family. It was the right decision. I continue to focus on their healing. Some have taken advantage of my silence, and the children see lies about themselves in the media, but I remind them that they know their own truth and their own minds. In fact, they are six very brave, very strong young people.

June 30, 2020: A source told Entertainment Tonight that Angelina and Brad have reached a point where they can co-parent together.

January 1, 2021: Angelina emailed Brad explaining her intent on selling her shares in Miraval. Angelina would later go on to argue that, according to court filings, Brad “categorically refused Jolie’s requests to distribute any portion of the winery’s profits” to her, despite her investing $60 million into the company.

February 2021: Brad and Angelina reached an agreement for Brad to pay Angelina $54.5 million for her interest in the winery, including undistributed profits. The deal fell apart after Brad demanded an NDA that would “prohibit Jolie from discussing outside of court any of Pitt’s personal conduct toward her or the family.” Brad’s team argued that the NDA was not meant to silence Angelina’s accusations of domestic violence, but rather to “ensure the seller doesn’t damage the value of the asset after being paid for it.”

March 18, 2021: Reportedly, Maddox testified against Brad in the private custody trial. According to Angelina's camp, the judge denied the option to hear out testimony from three other children.

May 5, 2021: The private trial for custody of the Jolie-Pitt children concluded. The judge in the trial, John Ouderkirk ruled in favor of Brad, giving him joint custody over five of the children (Maddox, the eldest, was now 19 and thus no longer part of any custody agreement). According to Brad’s camp, Ouderkirk reported that Angelina was “not credible,” however another source claims that Ouderkirk never said this. Angelina’s camp argued that Ouderkirk did not “adequately consider” evidence of domestic abuse, and failed to disclose professional relationships with Brad’s legal team.

July 23, 2021: The Appeals Court vacated Ouderkirk’s ruling, on the basis of an “ethical breach.” The Court stated:

The information disclosed concerning his recent professional relationships with Pitt’s counsel, might cause an objective person, aware of all the facts, reasonably to entertain a doubt as to the judge’s ability to be impartial. Disqualification is required."

October 5, 2021: Angelina sold Nouvel to Tenute del Mondo, a wine division under the Stoli Group, for $67 million. It would later come out that Tenute del Mondo was owned by Yuri, the Russian billionaire from earlier.

February 2022: Angelina and Zahara visit Capitol Hill in DC to speak on the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act.

February 17, 2022: Brad filed a lawsuit against Angelina and Nouvel, adding Shefler, Stoli, and Tenute del Mio at a later date. In the filing, Brad’s team sought to nullify the sale of Angelina’s 50% in Miraval. In a second lawsuit, Brad sued Angelina over the 10% he gifted her at their wedding–arguing that the share was void because Angelina had never paid the €1 price of the share (He also argued that if she had paid the price, it still would be null under the legal requirements). In both suits, Brad argued that above all else, Angelina was not allowed to sell without his expressed consent.

“What Jolie had sold wasn’t merely a vineyard, but Pitt’s passion—and a profitable one, as Miraval, under Pitt’s stewardship, has grown into a multimillion-dollar global business and one of the world’s most highly regarded producers of rosé wine.”

Additionally, Brad’s lawsuits argued that

1. Angelina “contributed nothing” to Miraval’s success

2. There was a “Jolie-led conspiracy” to “inflict harm on Pitt”

3. Yuri the Russian Billionaire was a U.S. Treasury-designated “oligarch in the Russian Federation” whose other liquors had become “synonymous with Russia” to the point of pouring his liquors down the drain was a symbol of solidarity with Ukraine, and that by selling her shares to him, Angelina was harming Miraval’s brand

In her cross-complaint, Angelina’s team argued that this sale was the only way Angelina could free her assets after Brad kept all their other properties. Additionally, she argued that the sale was actually financially beneficial to Miraval, as Stoli could distribute Miraval’s wines at a far higher level than before.

March 4, 2022: Two court officers and an IT expert were dispatched to Miraval under request of Nouvel with the French equivalent of a search warrant. Under this warrant, Nouvel seized evidence of “suspected malfeasance.” As of the time of this writing, the documents seized sit in the hands of the French court, unopened.

April 19, 2022: Reporters noticed that Judge Beryl Howell had approved a Freedom of Information Act request from a Jane Doe (believed to be Angelina) related to an alleged abuse incident that occurred on a plane. In the filing, Jane Doe requested that an FBI document investigating the incident be sealed, however Howell rejected the request, arguing that "allowing the suit to be filed anonymously would be sufficient to protect the children’s privacy. "

August 19, 2022: The 53-paged FBI document was released. The incident as detailed in the document is summarized above under the date September 14, 2016.

September 7, 2022: The new owners of Nouvel filed a cross-complaint against Brad and his associates and companies, suing for $250 million in damages “for the illegal and malicious actions of Pitt and his allies to injure Nouvel by devaluing its investments and depriving it of its proper role in the management of Chateau Miraval, the world-famous producer of rosé wine.”

In the filing, Nouvel also defended Yuri the Russian Billionaire, claiming that he was not aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin in any way. In fact, Yuri was one of his leading critics, with Putin going so far as to attempt to kidnap Yuri.

The cross-complaint noted:

“From exile, Shefler has repeatedly stood up to Putin and his regime. [He had publicly condemned Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and had financed meals for the Ukrainian people through the World Central Kitchen.] [Pitt’s demonization of Shefler was] an effort to further distract from—and excuse—his own misconduct[…]It’s not Stoli Group or Shefler whose reputation poses commercial risk to Chateau Miraval—it is his own.”

October 4, 2022: Angelina filed her own cross-complaint against Brad, where she denied that the two had ever agreed to only sell with the other’s consent and goes into detail regarding the physical violence on the plane, detailed above under the date September 14, 2016.

June 1, 2023: Brad Pitt amended his complaint against Angelina and Nouvel, which eventually culminated in Angelina’s lawyer pointing out that Brad “has never publicly denied” abuse allegations aboard the plane. Pitt’s own lawyer responded with “Brad has owned everything he’s responsible for from day one, but he’s not going to own anything he didn’t do.”

June 13, 2023: In an article with Vanity Fair, sources from Brad's camp seemingly confirmed explicitly for the first time that violence perpetuated by Brad did happen. This article is used numerous times throughout this post, and was linked here yesterday, so I will not summarize the findings.

Today

As legal conflict builds around Miraval, entertainment sites have questioned if this is “the new Johnny Depp and Amber Heard.” This sort of (thoughtless) speculation makes it more than clear how important it is for women’s rights advocates to stay cognizant and aware of all details surrounding these sorts of high-level accusations of abuse. As we saw in the aftermath of the Depp/Heard trial, more and more abuse victims have become afraid to come forward or pursue action against their abusers. The only way we can combat that is to continue supporting those who are brave enough to speak out, and show that domestic violence has consequences.