It was a great Hollywood love story, and a very 21st century one at that: two of the most famous actors in the world star together in a movie, and go on to have a large brood of children, a magazine tie-in wedding and one of the defining celebrity portmanteau brands of the age: Brangelina.

In September 2016, however, after 11 years and six children together and two years of marriage, Angelina Jolie filed for divorce from Brad Pitt, citing irreconcilable differences.

On Monday, more than eight highly acrimonious years later, that legal process finally concluded when the couple reached a divorce settlement, Jolie’s lawyer said.

“More than eight years ago, Angelina filed for divorce from Mr Pitt,” her lawyer, James Simon, said in a statement first reported by People magazine. “She and the children left all of the properties they had shared with Mr Pitt, and since that time she has focused on finding peace and healing for their family.

“This is just one part of a long ongoing process that started eight years ago. Frankly, Angelina is exhausted, but she is relieved this one part is over.”

No court documents have been filed to date, and a judge will need to sign off on the agreement, the Associated Press said. Pitt has not immediately commented.

Barack Obama was still US president when Jolie, now 49, called time on the fairytale, days after a flight on a private plane from France to California during which, she alleged, Pitt was abusive to her and their children. He has disputed her account. The 61-year-old was not prosecuted after an FBI investigation, and Jolie declined to press charges.

The long and bitter 99-month battle that followed centred on visitation and custody of their six biological and adopted children, who were all minors at the time of the separation but now range in age from 23 to 16. The warring actors have also been locked in dispute over their jointly owned winery and estate in France, Chateau Miraval, reportedly valued at $162m (£130m).

The story of Pitt and Jolie’s relationship began in 2004 when the couple, two of the highest-profile and highest-paid actors of their generation, were filming Mr and Mrs Smith, the tale of two married contract killers assigned to murder each other. He was married to Jennifer Aniston at the time; though Pitt and Jolie have said there was no infidelity before he and Aniston divorced in 2005, Pitt has since said he “fell in love” on the set of the movie.

In January 2006 the couple confirmed they were expecting their first child together, adding to the two Jolie had already adopted from Cambodia and Ethiopia, whom she named Maddox and Zahara. The first photographs of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, born in Namibia later that year and described by one paparazzo as “the most anticipated baby since Jesus Christ”, sold for millions, with the proceeds donated to charity.

They adopted another boy, Pax, from Vietnam the following year, and in 2007 their twins, Vivienne and Knox, were born, the photographs selling for a record £7m. After years of feverish speculation the celebrity couple married at their French villa in August 2014, the photos once again sold for millions to People and Hello magazines. Two years later it was all over.

Initially at least, there were some attempts to keep the dispute civilised. The couple released a joint statement in January 2017 saying they were “committed to act as a united front to effectuate recovery and reunification”, and announcing they had contracted a private judge to handle the divorce privately rather than through public court filings.

In 2019, the divorce was “bifurcated”, a legal process allowing the couple to be legally declared single while the outstanding financial and custody matters remained unresolved. The private judge that the two had hired to handle the case reached a decision soon afterwards that included equal custody of their children, but Jolie filed to have him removed from the case over an unreported conflict of interest. An appeals court agreed, the judge was removed, and the couple had to start again.

They continued to battle over Chateau Miraval, with the warring parties locked in suits and countersuits after Jolie sold her stake in the Provence winery to a company owned by a Russian oligarch.

It is not known whether the divorce agreement has resolved that dispute.