Angelina Jolie covers Vanity Fair’s new issue, breaking her silence on her divorce with Brad Pitt. While Brad had his own tell-all with GQ in May, this is the first time Jolie has opened up about the split.
In the interview, Jolie opens up about the struggles of the divorce, life after Brad and the difficulties of co-parenting their six children.
“I think it’s very important to cry in the shower and not in front of them. They need to know that everything’s going to be all right even when you’re not sure it is.”
Jolie denies the rumours that her and Pitt’s celebrity lifestyles led to the divorce. “Our lifestyle was not in any way a negative,” she says. “That was not the problem. That is and will remain one of the wonderful opportunities we are able to give our children..They’re six very strong-minded, thoughtful, worldly individuals. I’m very proud of them.”
Jolie and Pitt were together for 12 years, marrying in 2014, before Jolie filed for divorce last September.
Jolie says in the summer of 2016, just prior to the divorce, “things got bad” – and then corrects herself. “I didn’t want to use that word…Things became ‘difficult.’”
Jolie says her six children have been “very brave.” “In times they needed to be,” she says, without getting specific. “We’re all just healing from the events that led to the filing…They’re not healing from divorce. They’re healing from some…from life, from things in life.”
“It’s just been the hardest time, and we’re just kind of coming up for air,” Jolie adds.
In the interview, Jolie is asked if the communication has improved, as per Pitt’s statements in his GQ tell-all.
“We care for each other and care about our family, and we are both working towards the same goal.”
Jolie and her six children have since moved out of the family home and into a $USD 25 million estate. “[This house] is a big jump forward for us, and we’re all trying to do our best to heal our family,” she says.
*Photographs by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott. Styled by Jessica Diehl.