Movie star Brad Pitt recently shed light on his search for gold on his Southeastern property in France. The actor currently runs a largely successful wine business on the 1000-acre estate. He purchased the property with his ex-wife Angelina Jolie in 2008 and got married on the property in 2014.
The estate is currently the bone of contention between the former couple. Pitt recently sued Jolie for selling off her 50% stake of the Château Miraval to a Russian businessman without prior notice. The actor claimed the business was his passion, and he had invested millions into it to make it one of the most successful wine producers in the world.
In a recent interview, the actor talked about a time he was falsely informed that gold worth millions were buried in an unidentified part of the property. Pitt revealed that he spent around a year looking for the alleged gold and even purchased some equipment before finding out it was a hoax.
Brad Pitt Spent A Year Searching For Gold
Pitt recently revealed a previous hobby he had besides his acting career. The Hollywood icon appeared in an interview with GQ for the magazine’s August story. He mentioned a time he embarked on a quest to discover a buried treasure he thought was in his thousand-acre estate in Provence, France.
The actor acquired the home with his ex-wife, Angelina Jolie, in 2008 before getting married there in 2014. According to information he received, there was gold worth millions of dollars that dated back to the Crusades and were buried somewhere on the estate.
Recalling the time he said, “I got obsessed. Like for a year, this was all I could think about, just the excitement of it all. Maybe it has something to do with where I grew up because, in the Ozark mountains, there were always stories of hidden caches of gold.”
He Said Gold Hunting Was ‘Pretty Foolish’
The Missouri-raised actor revealed that he went as far as buying radar equipment to help his search for the buried treasure. He did not find any gold and eventually realized that his informant had conned him.
According to Pitt, the man who told him the initial tale was only trying to get investments for a radar company. He didn’t specify if it was from the company he bought the equipment for the dig. He added that the search proved “pretty foolish in the end.” “It was just the hunt that was exciting,” the “Bullet Train” actor said.
The 1000-acre estate is located in the village of Correns, which is found in the Provence-Alpes Côte d’Azur region housed in southeastern France. The mansion has 35 rooms and is surrounded by gardens with Moat, fountains, aqueducts, a pond, a Chapel, and a vineyard.
Brad Pitt And Angelina Jolie Got Married On The Estate
Pitt and Jolie purchased the Miraval property in 2008 for around $28.4 million. They proceeded to produce a range of wines, one of which was the Rosé named Pink Floyd, to honor the iconic band who recorded their 1979 album “The Wall” on the estate in 1979.
The duo got married on the estate in 2014 in a small wedding with just family and friends. Before when they got married, Pete was married to Jennifer Aniston; however, they divorced in 2005. Jolie, on her part, was previously married to Jonny Lee Miller for three years and then Bobby Thornton for another three.
After their divorce, they still jointly owned the property. Pitt invested In the wine business, turning it into a multi-million dollar business and one of the top producers of the Rosé wine in the world. The vast estate is also the reason behind the former couple’s bitter lawsuit.
Pitt Sued Jolie
Pete is currently embroiled in a bitter lawsuit with his ex-wife Jolie, accusing her of illegally selling her share of their joint property without consulting him first. According to him, he had invested millions in the wine business, and it was his current passion.
Jolie sold off her 50% stake in the business in 2021 to a Russian businessman named Yuri Shefler. According to the court documents obtained by Page Six, Jolie “sold her interest with knowledge and intention that Shelfer and his affiliates would seek to control the business to which Pitt had devoted himself and to undermine Pitt’s investment in Miraval.”
The papers further claimed that by 2013, the actress had stopped contributing to renovations of the property while Pitt continued putting millions of dollars into the business. It read that he had invested “roughly 70% of the couple’s investments in Miraval.”
“Jolie seeks to recover unearned windfall profits for herself while inflicting gratuitous harm on Pitt. Jolie long ago stopped contributing to Miraval — while Pitt poured money and sweat equity into the wine business. Jolie seeks to seize profits she has not earned and returns on an investment she did not make,” the suit continued.