Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s Kids Were Always at the Center of Their Marriage
The marriage of A-listers Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt began with their six children pitching in, and now, two years later, their three daughters and three sons have been named as a reason for their split.
Jolie filed for divorce Monday, citing irreconcilable differences. TMZ reports that the actress, 41, had a problem with the way Pitt, 52, was parenting their children and that she was “extremely upset with his methods.” Jolie reportedly also took issue with Pitt’s “anger problem” and alleged use of alcohol and marijuana. Her lawyer said the decision was made “for the health of the family.” Jolie is seeking physical custody of the kids, with visitation rights for Pitt.
In a statement, Pitt said, “I am very saddened by this, but what matters most now is the well-being of our kids. I kindly ask the press to give them the space they deserve during this challenging time.”
On Thursday, TMZ reported that the specific reason for the split is that Pitt allegedly abused the kids in one incident, which is now being investigated. He allegedly screamed and got physical with the kids while flying with them and Jolie in the family’s private plane last week, just days before Jolie filed for divorce. Pitt was reportedly inebriated at the time.
The Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services initially received an anonymous complaint about it. However, TMZ reports that it turned over the information to the L.A. Police Department, which then referred it to the FBI, because the incident took place during a flight between France and the United States.
Meanwhile, sources told TMZ that Pitt and Jolie have each been interviewed about what happened, and the children will be questioned too.
“[Pitt] takes the matter very seriously and says he did not commit any abuse of his children,” a source told the website. “It’s unfortunate that people involved are continuing to present him in the worst possible light.”
One of Hollywood’s most glamorous couples since they hooked up in 2004, the two — dubbed Brangelina by the media — have always been known as dedicated parents. Before Pitt was in the picture, Jolie adopted son Maddox (now 15) from Cambodia in 2002 when she was still with Billy Bob Thornton. She filed for divorce two months later. In 2005, she adopted daughter Zahara (now 11) from Ethiopia. At the end of 2002, Pitt made the move to adopt Maddox and Zahara. In 2007, Jolie adopted Pax (now 12), a native of Vietnam, by herself because Vietnamese regulations don’t allow unmarried couples to adopt. When they were back in the U.S., Pitt filed to adopt him Brangelina have also welcomed three biological children: Shiloh (now 10) in 2006 and twins Vivienne and Knox (now 8) in 2008.
Famous or not, children suffer from divorce when either parent tries to win the child over to his or her side, says Dr. Joshua Coleman, a psychologist and author.
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He adds that divorcing parents make the situation more painful for the kids when a change in schools or standard of living follows, which is something the Jolie-Pitt kids probably won’t face. They will, however, be coping with the breakup in front of the world.
“The disadvantage to children of being in the spotlight is that the child could feel more shamed by association to whatever tawdry details emerge as a result of the divorce,” Coleman tells Yahoo Celebrity. “This could cause them to feel shame and guilt by association and be more subjected to peer-group ridicule than in a divorce that is less visible to the public.”
He cautions that divorce can affect the parent-child relationship for years, depending on how it’s handled.
“A very high percentage of the parents in my practice who are now estranged from their adult children are also divorced from the estranged child’s other parent,” he notes. “This suggests that divorce may weaken the tie to one or both of the parents over the life course. Of course, it could also strengthen the tie to a parent, but I don’t see that as frequently.”
Ironically, Jolie and her father, actor Jon Voight, often have had an estranged relationship over the years. Voight and Jolie’s late mother, Marcheline Bertrand, divorced after he had an affair when Jolie was a baby.
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For now, the Jolie-Pitt brood is close and seemingly always has been. The couple’s wedding is the perfect example of that closeness. Before walking down the aisle two years ago, Jolie and Pitt both had been in marriages that didn’t work, and they weren’t eager to take the plunge again. For a while, they said they wouldn’t marry until all couples — including same-sex couples — were allowed to do so, and then they changed their minds and got engaged a year after their little ones first brought it up.
“The kids ask about marriage,” Pitt told USA Today in May 2011. “It’s meaning more and more to them.”
When the movie-star couple took the plunge in a ceremony at the family’s French estate, Chateau Miraval, the children were front and center as always. Pax was credited with making the wedding cake, and he and brother Maddox both walked their mom down the aisle. Zahara and Vivienne were flower girls, and Shiloh and Knox were the ring bearers. All the kids planned the wedding, wrote the vows their parents exchanged, and contributed drawings featured on Jolie’s custom bridal gown.
The famous family has managed to stay tight despite mom and dad’s demanding work schedules. Whenever one of the parents was working in a far-flung corner of the world, the entire family would often tag along — the kids are homeschooled — and make it a lesson in culture and geography. (Jolie revealed to the BBC in June that each of her children is learning at least one foreign language.) Occasionally, the kids have even taken on bit parts in their mom’s films.
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“Well, our life is their normal,” Pitt explained to the Telegraph in December 2015. “Because we’re migratory workers in a sense, they have this wonderful thing where they get to be students of the world. They have memories of being in Vietnam, or that time in Paris, or over in Calgary. The downside is friends, sleepovers, team sports — these have been the challenges that we’ve had to work out.
“We do those things, but we really have to go out of our way. And Mom is a matador about it all — she’s fantastic. We get their friends to us a lot. And then when we set up in one place for any length of time I get on the team sports, because I really want them to have that understanding of being on the team.”
It is, as Pitt told the newspaper, “a lot of love, a lot of fighting, a lot of refereeing; a lot of teeth-brushing and spilling … Chaos, total chaos. But so much fun.”
In a November 2015 interview with the Wall Street Journal, Jolie explained that their daily life is not unlike what noncelebrity families experience.
“We wake up, we make breakfast. In our domestic life, we’re Mom and Dad,” Jolie said. “And often we’re dorky Mom and Dad, which the kids find ridiculous.”
At the same time, Pitt applauded Jolie for the creativity she offered as a parent.
“No matter how tired she might be, she plans outings for each and all,” he said. “She has an incredible knack for inventing crazy experiences for them, something new, something fresh. I may be the bigger goof of the pair, but she invents the stage.”
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The family often goes on adventures, such as seeing a Broadway show or buying an 8-foot-tall teddy bear by the side of the road. Both of the philanthropic parents likely were responsible for the children’s charitable acts, including the time that Zahara and Shiloh decided to provide clothes for a poverty-stricken family they encountered at an ice cream parlor in Cambodia.
Although her brood is larger than most, Jolie has noted that she makes sure everyone gets attention.
“We want to make sure we don’t build a family so big that we don’t have absolutely enough time to raise them each really well,” she told Vanity Fair in June 2010. “Children are clearly a commitment, a bigger commitment [than marriage]. It’s for life.”
