Ten years after the divorce, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie still have not separated. Not emotionally - that ended long ago. They still have not separated legally, and Pitt's latest move shows how far this dispute goes: he is asking a Los Angeles court to order Jolie to hand over four years of financial records.

According to documents filed on 31 July, Pitt claims Jolie is withholding information about her income since the 2016 separation. His team is seeking contracts and proof of earnings for the period from 2017 to 2021. The logic runs like this: Jolie argued she had scaled back her professional activity because she was economically dependent on him, so Pitt wants to see what she was actually earning. In those years she filmed, among other things, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and Eternals.

Jolie's defence rejects the request as an intrusion into her privacy. Her lawyers say enough information was already provided in the divorce proceedings and that the new request goes beyond what the law requires. She initially agreed to share data from 2017 onwards, but handed over only 2020 and 2021.

All of this revolves around one winery.

Chateau Miraval in Provence is a 500-hectare estate the two bought for 28.4 million dollars in 2008 and took over fully by 2012. With the Perrin family they made a rose that became a global name. In October 2021 Jolie quietly sold her 50 percent stake to Tenute del Mondo, a subsidiary of Stoli Group, for 64 million dollars. In February 2022 Pitt sued, claiming the sale breached a verbal agreement on right of first refusal. In September of the same year Jolie countersued, accusing him of asking her to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Since then the case has moved in small legal steps. In May 2024 the court handed him a technical win and obliged Jolie to produce eight years of confidentiality agreements with third parties. This year a judge denied him access to 22 private letters between her and her legal advisers. In June he was allowed to depose Stoli's executives in London. The trial is not expected until August 2027.

Eighteen years after buying a house in Provence, two people with fortunes most will never see are spending time, lawyers and reputation on one estate. The most expensive part of a divorce is almost never the division. It is the refusal to end it.