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28 March 2024

'Brangelina' to divorce; who will home in on their million-dollar mansions?

Published
By Reuters

With the unexpected news that Angelina Jolie filed for divorce from Brad Pitt - legal documents cite irreconcilable differences but celebrity gossip juggernaut TMZ reports she became "fed up" with his pot smoking, concerned with his "anger problem," and unhappy with his parenting methods.

Her husband of two years and romantic partner since 2005, Jolie's filing signals the end of one of Hollywood's most glamorous and powerful couples.

"This decision was made for the health of the family. She will not be commenting, and asks that the family be given its privacy at this time," attorney Robert Offer said in a statement.

The Oscar-winning actress filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday, citing irreconcilable differences, court documents showed. Jolie sought full physical custody of their six children ages 8 to 15 with visitation rights for Pitt but did not seek spousal support. Jolie cited their separation date as Sept. 15.

"I am very saddened by this but what matters most now is the well-being of our kids," Pitt told People magazine. "I kindly ask the press to give them the space they deserve during this challenging time."

Jolie and Pitt, known collectively as 'Brangelina', were one of the entertainment world's most visible couples, due to their good looks, successful films and activism.

They married in 2014 after a decade together.

Their relationship was steady fodder for tabloids with reports focusing on what role Jolie played in the breakup of Pitt's marriage to actress Jennifer Aniston and, more recently, possible trouble in the marriage.

Before their August 2014 wedding at their French estate, Jolie and Pitt had said they would not wed until same-sex couples were allowed to marry.

Property pie

Even as the duo look set to slug it out in the courts, the couple's impressive international property portfolio could turn into a battleground.

In three separate transactions during the mid- to late-1990s, Pitt paid a total of $2.55 million for three contiguous properties in an affluent and celeb-soaked pocket of Los Angeles's Los Feliz area.

Giovanni Ribisi owns one of the neighboring properties and Rooney Mara owns a nearby home she scooped up in early 2015 for $2.9 million from Alexander Skarsgard.

Subsequent to the Jolie-Pitt's coupling the almost freakishly attractive pair added two more adjoining properties that combined cost $2,387,500.

All together, according to property records and other online resources, the gated and, no doubt, heavily secured compound cost a total of $4,942,500 and encompasses 1.9 acres with at least four structures including a 1915 Craftsman that clocks in at 6,692-square-feet with six bedrooms and seven bathrooms.

In the latter days of 2006, not too long after they hooked up but almost eight years before their August 2014 wedding, the Jolie-Pitts splashed out $3.5 million for a 1930s masonry mansion in New Orleans' famed French Quarter.

In May 2015 they put the mansion up for sale at $6.5 million and the price plummeted to $5.65 million before it was taken off the market in mid-December.

Listing details from the time show that in addition to a "Magnificently renovated" main house with elevator, Venetian plastered walls and a "gourmet kitchen" with "top of the line appliances," the property has a two-story guesthouse with one bedroom and 1.5 bathrooms, a private and spacious courtyard with swimming pool, and off-street parking for two cars.

In 2008 the now erstwhile pair rented Chateau Miraval, a sprawling, multi-residence estate near the village of Correns in the south of France and they purchased the approximately 1,200-acre spread in 2012 from American businessman Tom Bove for a reported $60 million.

Pics: Getty Images

Just over an hour by car north of Toulon and roughly 1.5 hours by car west of Cannes, the village-like compound has numerous structures, some of which date to the 18th-century. In addition to a main house that some reports say has 35 or more rooms there are several smaller cottages for guests and/or staff, a Romanesque chapel where the couple wed, and a recording studio.

The property, which they bought from American businessman was once owned by French jazz pianist Jacques Loussier - where Pink Floyd, AC/DC, Muse and Sting have all been reported to have recorded.

The property has pine forests, olive groves, a private pond, and extensive organic vineyards along with indoor and outdoor swimming pools, spa and gym facilities, a professional-grade screening room, a video game arcade, a dirt bike course, and a couple of helicopter landing pads.

Jolie, nominated for an Oscar in 2009 for 'Changeling' and an Oscar winner in 2000 for 'Girl Interrupted', has owned a 1,232-square-foot apartment on a high floor of the elegant and architecturally distinguished Ansonia building on New York City's Upper West Side since December of 1997 and in 2003 she bought a traditional home on almost 100 acres in Cambodia's Battambang Province where she later bought about 12,000 acres of land she turned into a wildlife preserve.

And, finally, in late 2000, shortly after Pitt married his first wife Jennifer Aniston, the six-time Oscar nominated and one-time Oscar-winning actor paid an unknown amount for an 11.5 acre ocean-front compound along a rugged and otherwise unspoiled stretch of beach just outside of Santa Barbara, California.

Of course, this property gossip doesn't know an apple from and apple cart so we really can't say what will come of the Jolie-Pitt's numerous properties but we assume without any inside intel that each will keep what they brought to their ten-plus year union and that Chateau Miraval and their New Orleans pied-a-terre will be sold off.

We shall see, butter beans, we shall see.