Angelina Jolie has asked a judge to allow her to sell her share of a wine business she owns with ex-husband Brad Pitt.
The Oscar-winning actress, 46, filed a petition in Los Angeles calling for the removal of a temporary restraining order on their assets automatically in place since their divorce got under way in 2016.
Jolie and Pitt, 57, were declared legally single in 2019, though they are yet to finalise a custody arrangement for their children.
Jolie wants to sell her Nouvel LLC, a Luxembourg-based company with interests in the Chateau Miraval vineyard she and Pitt bought in France in 2011.
Pitt’s Mondo Bongo LLC is an equal shareholder in the vineyard, documents show.
Jolie does not want to be Pitt’s “unwilling and disregarded business partner” but is unable to force her former husband to buy her out, the court document states.
They have had “lengthy negotiations” that failed to reach an agreement but Jolie has now found a third party buyer, according to her legal team.
However, “time is of the essence because the buyer has communicated that any delay may result in the buyer pulling out of the deal”.
A judge has yet to respond to the request to lift the automatic temporary restraining orders, but an emergency request was rejected in June.
That filing stated Jolie had failed to show “immediate danger/irreparable harm or immediate loss/damage to property”.
Jolie sought a divorce in 2016, days after a disagreement broke out on a private flight ferrying the actors and their children from France to Los Angeles.
Pitt was accused of being abusive toward his then-15-year-old son during the flight, but investigations by child welfare officials and the FBI were closed with no charges being filed against the actor.
In May, Pitt was granted joint custody of the former couple’s children in a tentative ruling.
They are parents to Pax, 17, Zahara, 16, Shiloh, 15 and 12-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox.
The oldest, 19-year-old Maddox, is not subject to the custody decision.