Angelina Jolie is ready to flee the superficial Hollywood scene in Los Angeles, but her looming divorce from Brad Pitt is holding up her plans of doing so.
Jolie filed for divorce from the actor in 2016 after two years of marriage, though they had been together for over a decade. They were declared legally single by a judge in 2019. The pair famously connected while working on the set of the “Mr & Mrs. Smith” remake in 2003.
When the film co-stars met, Jolie was a single mother to a son named Maddox, whom she adopted from Cambodia in 2002. At the time, Pitt was married to “Friends” star Jennifer Aniston. However, two years later, as rumors of his romance with Jolie intensified, Aniston filed for divorce, ending their five-year union in 2005.
The 1995 People’s Sexiest Man Alive charmer and his ex-wife have been embroiled in a heated legal battle over custody of their twins, Vivian and Knox, 16, whom they welcomed in 2008.
They are also parents to adopted son Pax and daughter Zahara, as well as biological parents to daughter Shiloh. The actress alleged in her divorce filing that the kids witnessed Pitt grab her head and shake it during an argument aboard a private flight in 2016. Since then, the children have been estranged from the “Wolfs” star.
But as long as their twins are minors, Jolie will not relocate outside of the U.S. as she wishes. “Of all the places in the world, Hollywood is not a healthy place,” to be she told The Wall Street Journal. She also stated, “I lost my ability to live and travel as freely,” as a result of the divorce. But in two years that will change.
The former couple’s finances and a lawsuit regarding their French winery Château Miraval have also been hangups in the contentious settlement process. Jolie sold her 50 percent stake in the property for a reported nine figures in 2021, a business move Pitt alleges infringed upon their agreement to seek approval from each other before selling their respective ownerships.
In August, she opened up to The Hollywood Reporter about her desire to leave Hollywood. Jolie is the child of actor Jon Voight and late actress Marcheline Bertrand. “I grew up in this town. I am here because I have to be here from a divorce, but as soon as they’re 18, I’ll be able to leave,” she told the outlet.
All angelina wanted brad pitt to do was take accountability and help heal their family. She never wanted this to get out. Yet his abuse continues almost a decade from the divorce. pic.twitter.com/Gazd64O2ke https://t.co/ovPM7rThiK
— K🎱 (@lyntwig_) April 4, 2024
“When you have a big family, you want them to have privacy, peace, safety,” she added. “I have a house now to raise my children, but sometimes this place can be … that humanity that I found across the world is not what I grew up with here. [After Los Angeles,] I’ll spend a lot of time in Cambodia. I’ll spend time visiting my family members wherever they may be in the world.”
Among the reactions to news of her plans was someone who shared, “Angelina Jolie is just looking for publicity. She has bad-mouthed Brad Pitt for 7 years now, kept his kids from him and generally behaved like a woman scorned.”
A second perspective suggested, “This coming from a woman profiting from what she’s running from.” A third individual wrote, “Maybe we should see how Cambodia feels about this.”
16 years ago, Angelina Jolie visited Cambodia and found a bookstand selling a memoir by Loung Ung—a moment that changed her life. #TIFF17 pic.twitter.com/4l2QdcQPDs
— TIFF (@TIFF_NET) September 13, 2017
Jolie’s connection to Cambodia began in 2000 while on location filing “Tomb Raider.” The actress-director has also committed to decades of humanitarian work across the globe, including in the Southeast Asian country.
Among some of the natives, she has been considered a “patron saint,” and in 2018, her work on the film “First, They Killed My Father” was critically acclaimed. The project details the genocide of Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s.
