Angelina Jolie and Brad Pittbroke up over two years ago, but they’re still doing their best to coparent after their high-profile divorce. However, that means sometimes there will be compromises—and for Jolie that includes staying in Los Angeles near Pitt so her kids can be closer to their father.
In a new interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Jolie was asked about her desire to encourage her children to explore the world. She shared that she “would love to live abroad and will do so as soon as my children are 18.” Although she didn’t say where, exactly, she wants to go, she indicated that those plans are on hold for a while because of her ex-husband. “Right now I’m having to base where their father chooses to live,” she explained.
Angelina Jolie and her children Vivienne, Zahara, Shiloh, and Knox attend the European premiere of Maleficent: Mistress of Evil in London.
Keith Mayhew/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
While Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are both currently in Los Angeles, where Jolie was born, the actress has spent time in several different countries over the years. She formed a particularly special bond with Cambodia, where she adopted her oldest son, Maddox Chivan.
In the interview Jolie also opened up about what her life has been like after separating from Pitt. She shared that it’s her kids who have helped her to reconnect with herself and have shown her strength during a difficult period. “The part of us that is free, wild, open, curious, can get shut down by life,” she said. “By pain or by harm. My children know my true self, and they have helped me to find it again and to embrace it.”
She continued, “They have been through a lot. I learn from their strength. As parents, we encourage our kids to embrace all that they are, and all that they know in their hearts to be right, and they look back at us and want the same for us.”
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have been in the process of divorcing for more than two and a half years, but it seems like things might be beginning to wrap up. People reported on Saturday (April 13) that the two are officially single again. However, there’s a twist—and it’s pretty important.
A judge has now ruled that the two can be considered single in the eyes of the law. The term for this is called “bifurcation,” and The Blast, which first broke the report, writes that the ruling in their case was filed Friday, April 12. What bifurcation does is allow them to keep hammering out the final details of their divorce while otherwise basically ending the marriage. So they’re single, but not quite yet divorced-divorced—and it’s a way for them to start getting some emotional distance as the process wraps up, too.
“We’re both doing our best. I heard one lawyer say, ‘No one wins in court—it’s just a matter of who gets hurt worse,'” Pitt told GQ back in 2017, just months after the initial divorce filing. “And it seems to be true, you spend a year just focused on building a case to prove your point and why you’re right and why they’re wrong, and it’s just an investment in vitriolic hatred. I just refuse. And fortunately my partner in this agrees. It’s just very, very jarring for the kids, to suddenly have their family ripped apart.”
Jolie filed for divorce in September 2016, about two years after the two had married in France, citing “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for separation and asking for custody of their six children. The divorce has definitely dragged on—mostly, reports People, due to conversations about finances and custody, and it’s still not finalized yet. But hey, it’s one step closer to closure for Brangelina.
Angelina Jolie‘s most talked-about fashion moments often involve the red carpet. (She did singlehandedly reinvent the leg-slit gown, after all.) But you shouldn’t be sleeping on her off-duty style. The actress is always incorporating a range of polished, accessible items into her wardrobe—including pieces from a brand favored by Meghan Markle and Amal Clooney.
Over the weekend, Jolie was photographed while shopping in Los Angeles with her daughter, Vivian. According to Hollywood Life* reports, she visited a flower market, wearing a casual combination of all your favorite essentials: trench coat, jeans, ballet flats, and aviator sunglasses.
JOGA, JOLA, ENAV
Jolie’s look was a truly quintessential spring outfit. The best part, though? The credits include a mix of high and low, many of which are still shoppable.
Only two pieces have been ID’d so far—her trench and her sunglasses. The former is the Drape Trench Coat from ethical fashion brand Everlane. It currently retails for $138, and is one of the best-reviewed items on the website website.
As it turns out, Jolie is a longtime Everlane fan: She’s been seen carrying its Petra Tote, which is no longer sold, for several years; and has been spotted wearing the brand’s editor heels for press junkets and weekend errands, as well as its modern loafers to the airport.
But back to this most recent high/low moment: The “high” of Jolie’s outfit came from her sleek sunnies. The frames are from Dior and retail for $350.
They were an impossibly good-looking couple, forever rocking micro-shades, twinning with their similarly bronzed skin and early-aughts cool. Their divorce—and the woman who was rumored to have caused it—rocked the community. I’m not referring to Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt. I’m talking about my parents and their scandalous separation.
My mother and father first split when I was 10 years old, in 2003. They told me it was amicable, that it wasn’t my fault, that they’d always be my parents. But their split was messy. For the first two years, they still lived in the same house. They dabbled in couples therapy, slept in separate rooms, and took turns having nights out with their single friends (dad’s night out was always Thursday, mom got the Tuesday shift). It wasn’t until 2005 that my father moved out and I realized what we were dealing with was more than just a new sleeping arrangement—that their break up was the real deal.
Then, as luck would have it, a certain celebrity—one that could be classified as the most famous in the world at the time—announced her own divorce, right as my parents began proceedings on theirs, forever tethering two conscious uncouplings in my mind.
I’d always loved Jennifer Aniston and considered myself a for-real fan. I was also nine years old and alarmingly invested in her marriage to Brad Pitt. Exhibit A: The letter to I wrote to Jen in 2002, saying, “Please tell your husband that I thought he did a very good job in Ocean’s Eleven and that it was one of my favorite movies.” I loved that, in her wedding vows, she promised to always make Brad’s favorite banana milkshake, that he made a cameo on Friends as the president of the “I Hate Rachel Green Club,” that they always showed up to red carpets looking like the all-American golden couple they were.
So when they broke up, I was stunned. But when I found out why they broke up, I was really stunned. The Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie alleged love triangle was my first glimpse of infidelity. And as the tabloids chronicled every single facet of the relationship’s demise (with vile headlines that often alluded to rumors about Jen’s unwillingness or inability to have children). I started to piece together the rumblings I’d been hearing in my own household, the whispers from all of the adults in my life. It was the inescapable and addictive news coverage of Jen, Brad, and Angelina that made me realize the glaringly obvious fact that my parent’s marriage had ended in a similar fashion.
PHOTO: Dan Callister
It didn’t take long for the media’s obsession with the end of the golden couple to turn into a full-on Jen vs. Angie feeding frenzy. Every tabloid pitted them against each other, and retailers like early 2000s celebrity-favorite, Kitson, sold “Team Aniston,” and “Team Jolie” shirts—most famously worn by Paris and Nicky Hilton on L.A.’s Robertson Boulevard.
It was this narrative—these two women as eternal mortal enemies—that both the press and I clung to. In my mind, my mother became Jennifer Aniston: the scorned girl next door. And my father’s new girlfriend, with her belly button piercing, skimpy clothing, and wild mane, became a stand-in for Angelina. So I swore loyalty to my mother and Team Aniston, opted out of seeing Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and cursed Angie’s name when the W spread of Brangelina playing house hit newsstands.
And it stayed that way for years. I saw The Breakup opening weekend, every time someone praised Angelina’s philanthropic work I retorted that she was a homewrecker. Obviously, I knew nothing of the situation other than what the rags were reporting, yet I stood by Jen despite a few questionable romantic choices (John Mayer? Really?). In my real life, I grew older and even closer to my mother as I continued to keep my distance from my Angie and held tight to the vision of my parents’ divorce I’d stolen from the headlines years prior.
PHOTO: Jean Baptiste Lacroix
Then something funny happened. In 2016, Brangelina parted ways. At first, I was thrilled. Remember that New York Post cover that came out with Jen laughing about their separation announcement? That was my reaction, except I was laughing even harder. But then it didn’t take long for the rumors to emerge that their split was prompted by Brad’s on-set affair with French actress Marion Cotillard while filming another sexy spy flick, Allied. Though it seemingly proved to be nothing other than gossip, it struck an emerging-feminist nerve: During all my years of anger, there were two people I was never mad at: Brad and my father.
As a young girl who loved (and still absolutely loves) her dad, the tale of Brangelina provided me with the perfect way to avoid assigning my father any blame. It made the women in my father’s life the center of the drama, absolving him of any misdoing. Much like how, in the media, we were all so obsessed with the Jen and Angie feud, that Brad got out of it nearly unscathed. In all the T-shirt making, where was the “Team Fuck Brad” top?
But with the demise of Brangelina, I no longer felt vindicated. I just felt sad. This was a real marriage that ended, and all the press could do was start circulating “will they or won’t they” articles about a Brad and Jen reconciliation. I no longer found comfort in the narrative the media had created, instead I was outraged, that these women’s pain was made into the story of the ages. And I was angry at myself, for deriving so much pleasure from it.
While the media hasn’t retired the lonely ex versus the hot replacement girlfriend storyline, as women in Hollywood come together to say Time’s Up, they’re also calling bullshit on this narrative. Take Olivia Munn and Anna Faris, who didn’t let themselves become Jen and Angie take two after Anna’s divorce from Chris Pratt. When rumors swirled Olivia and Chris were having an affair, she posted an Instagram text exchange with Anna and captioned it, “Not every woman is scorned and upset after a breakup,” Munn wrote. “Not every woman is ‘furious’ at another woman for dating her ex…So even if I was dating [Chris], some tabloids got me and [Anna] all wrong…women respect and love each other a lot more than some people like to think.” But it’s not the women’s responsibility to dispel the rumors, it’s society’s obligation to wake up and realize that pitting women against women is a bad look—plain and simple.
So I’m sorry, Angelina, and Jen, too, for perpetuating a story you never chose to be a part of, and were never given the opportunity to excuse yourselves from. I’m on both your teams.
The actress and philanthropist has just landed in London with two of her children, Shiloh and Knox Jolie-Pitt, and a bunch of luggage in tow, fueling speculation that she’s another member of the Hollywood elite attending the royal wedding. According to the Daily Mail, Angelina Jolie and her children arrived at Heathrow Airport on Thursday, just two days before the May 19 nuptials.
While Chopra and Williams (who cleared her schedule but has yet to confirm an invitation to the royal wedding) are both personal friends of Meghan Markle, the Daily Mail reports that the she and Jolie don’t appear to have any known connections. Jolie does, however, have links to the royal family. According to Harper’s Bazaar, Jolie was made an honorary dame by the queen last October for “her work fighting against the use of sexual violence as a weapon during periods of war.” The magazine also reported that Jolie and the queen have been collaborating on the queen’s Commonwealth Canopy, a project that seeks to build a worldwide conservation network.
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Of course, there’s a chance that all of this is just a coincidence, and she’s in London for an entirely unrelated reason. The Daily Mail reported that Jolie’s been traveling to and from London to film the Maleficent sequel, which is disappointing for those hoping to see her at St. George’s Chapel on Saturday, but certainly reasonable. If Jolie does happen to attend, however, she’ll be in good company: In addition to Williams and Chopra, the Spice Girls and Sir Elton John are some of the other celebrities either confirmed or rumored to be showing up.
It turns out that love might not be dead after all: Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are reportedly reconciling, according to a Mail on Sunday exclusive. The report comes after early-August tabloid news that the entity formerly known as Brangelina had put their divorce on hold, making all of us start to believe once again.
The Mail‘s report is largely based on the singular testimony of Ian Halperin, a celebrity biographer and journalist whose major work to date was the New York Times bestseller Unmasked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson. He’s also releasing a documentary about the couple, Broken: The Incredible Story Of Brangelina, later this year. So take the following with a grain of salt, as the news hasn’t been confirmed by anyone on the record in either camp.
Now the good stuff. Apparently the couple saw each other face-to-face for the first time in 10 months in what was truly a cinematic rendezvous. According the Mail, they arrived separately but simultaneously in black limos outside a “modest” house in Beverly Hills. “Brad took the first step forward,” Halperin told the Mail. “Then they collapsed in each other’s arms.” (We can totally see this as a deleted scene in Mr. and Mrs. Smith.)
We know that Jolie hasn’t been happy in her newly single life, as she said candidly in an interview with the Telegraph published on Saturday. Apparently after they met outside of the house, they went inside to hash out “months of acrimony and mud-slinging” in the presence of a mediator. Halperin tells the Mail that that’s when they “decided to make a fresh start.”
“It was a ‘come to Jesus meeting’ that marked the beginning of a new phase in their relationship,” he added in the Mail article.
According to the article, the meeting was arranged by the negotiator handling their divorce—which, if their divorce was indeed put on hold, seems to be the next logical thing to do. The article draws comparisons to the tempestuously and publicly on-again, off-again relationship of Hollywood mega-stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, which resulted in two marriages and two divorces for the couple.
The Mail reports that Brangelina have joked about ‘consciously re-coupling.’ However, Halperin says that the divorce might go ahead after all—Jolie, he says, feels like everything went wrong after they got married because the relationship shifted. And, Halperin adds, Pitt started drinking more, which was one of the reasons the couple was rumored to have divorced.
According to the Mail, which goes on to cite unnamed sources close to the couple, the couple will make several changes to move forward: less travel and moving away from individuals who have apparently had too much input into their relationship are two key ones. Both have also been making personal changes: Pitt has owned up to issues with pot and drinking in a much-publicized GQ article, and, according to the article, Jolie is seeing a “spiritual counselor.”
In any case, “they both view divorce as not the worst thing that can happen,” Halperin says in the Mail story. “It’s only a piece of paper and they feel once the divorce is done, they have a clean sheet and can start their lives anew.”
They might be able to, but we’ll still be over here picking up the pieces of our shattered hearts. Oh wait—
“Brad hasn’t got eyes for anyone else and nor has Angie,” Halperin added in the article.
