Brad Pitt spent a year hunting 'buried treasure' at his French chateau
The Hollywood star said he became 'obsessed' after a man told him millions of dollars worth of treasure could be buried at the estate
😟😉😃 Brad Pitt has revealed that he spent a year digging up the grounds of his French chateau after falling for a story that it was the site of buried gold.
😟😉😃 The Hollywood star said he was approached by a man who told him that the estate could be home to millions of dollars worth of treasure that its mediaeval owner had taken from the Levant during the Crusades.
😟😉😃 Pitt bought radar equipment and began scouring his estate. “I got obsessed,” he told GQ magazine. “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.”
😟😉😃 However, Pitt said he later learned that the man who approached him was promoting a radar company.
😟😉😃 The actor said he felt “pretty foolish in the end. It was just the hunt that was exciting.”
😟😉😃 Pitt signed a lease for the 1,200-acre Chateau Miraval, in south-eastern France, with his then wife, Angelina Jolie, in 2008 and bought it outright in 2012. They married there in 2014.
😟😉😃 In addition to the vineyard, which produces rosé, the property has a private lake, olive groves, a moat and a helicopter pad.
😟😉😃 Chateau Miraval is now at the centre of an acrimonious legal battle. Pitt is suing Jolie, accusing her of secretly selling her share of the estate’s vineyard to a Russian oligarch. In a lawsuit filed earlier this year in Los Angeles, he claimed that the couple had an agreement that neither would sell their share without the other party’s approval.
😟😉😃 Although Jolie filed for divorce in 2016, the pair have been embroiled in lengthy proceedings ever since. Pitt was granted joint custody of their children last year.
😟😉😃 He told GQ that until a year ago he was plagued by a recurring dream of being stabbed, which he put down to feeling lonely.
😟😉😃 He added: “I think joy’s been a newer discovery, later in life. I think I spent years with a low-grade depression, and it’s not until coming to terms with that… that I’ve been able to catch those moments of joy.
😟😉😃 In the interview, Pitt, 58, said he had reached the final stages of his career.
😟😉😃 “I consider myself on my last leg, this last semester or trimester,” he said. Although he will continue to act - his new thriller, Bullet Train, is released next month - he intends to focus on his production company.
😟😉😃 He has also made changes to his health, giving up alcohol in 2016 and quitting smoking during lockdown. Referring to David Hockney, the artist and dedicated smoker, Pitt said: “He’s still chaining, the hardcore English way. It looks great.
😟😉😃 “I don’t think I have that. I’m just at an age when nothing good comes from it.”
😟😉😃 Pitt said that his new hobby, which he developed during lockdown, is making ceramic candlesticks.
😟😉😃 The July/August issue of British GQ is available via digital download and on newsstands on 28th June.