The designer has taken legal action against the actor and his estranged wife after they reportedly stopped paying her and her team in the middle of huge lighting project for their French home.
- Aug 18, 2017
AceShowbiz - Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have to face another legal battle amid their divorce. The estranged couple has been ordered to pay their lighting designer 565,000 Euros. Designer Odile Soudant decided to sue them after they allegedly failed to credit her on their residence in Provence, French and drove her company toward financial ruin, The Guardian has reported.
Odile claimed Brad and Angelina hired her in 2010 to design lighting for four buildings in their estate. The huge project labored over 17 people, including "architects, designers, lighting and acoustic specialists, and even an optical engineer to calculate the angle of the sun's rays on the chateu." It went on for several months before slowing down to a halt when the employees stopped receiving payment from Brad and Angelina.
"Odile, I need you," Brad reportedly wrote in an email. "Come here please. I need you to finish." Another email read, "I don't know how things happen in France but in the United States, friends don't attack friends. I've been nothing but a fan of your work. Do not attack. Let's finish the project and be proud of it. The work is too good to end on a bad note. Life is too short, my friend."
Odile has been reportedly paid in full, but she's still fighting to be recognized as the creator of the lighting project. Because of the dispute, the credit was given to one of the employees instead. "I am an artist and this is my work," she said. "When someone tries to steal my work it is something else. This is all very painful for me." She insisted that the money she received was nothing compared to what she had been through. "Of course, people think Brad Pitt is right, that 'he's the good guy and she is wrong,' " she added.
In response to the news, a rep for Brad said in a statement, "We respect the Court's decision resolving this long running, standard dispute over payment of invoices. This narrow ruling does not address any copyright issues involving [lighting] designs developed by Brad and has no connection to Chateu Miraval."
