Angelina Jolie Breaks Her Silence on ‘Difficult’ Brad Pitt Divorce
Angelina Jolie made her first public appearance in several months on Saturday for the world premiere of her new film “First They Killed My Father” in Cambodia.
Accompanied by her six children, the Oscar-winning actress said her upcoming Netflix drama was a way of saying “Thank you” to the region, where she filmed the 2001 movie “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” and later adopted her eldest son, Maddox.
“Without Cambodia I may never have become a mother,” she said. “Part of my heart is and will always be in this country.”
While in Cambodia, Jolie sat down for an interview with the BBC World News in which she discussed her highly-publicized split with Brad Pitt as well as her future plans.
“I don’t want to say very much about that, except to say that it was a very difficult time,” Jolie said of the Pitt divorce. “And we are a family and we’ll always be a family. And we will get through this time and hopefully be a stronger family for it.”
Angelina Jolie and her children in Cambodia on Saturday. AP Photo/Heng Sinith |
When asked how she was coping, Jolie replied, “My focus is my children, our children … and my focus is finding this way through. And as I said, we are and forever will be a family. And so that is how I’m coping. I’m coping with finding a way through to make sure this somehow makes us stronger and closer.”
Pitt has also kept a low profile since the A-list couple’s break-up last year, making his first public appearance at the Golden Globes in January to support his acclaimed drama, “Moonlight,” which is also nominated for best picture at Sunday’s Academy Awards.
He and Jolie reached a child custody agreement last fall which entitles Jolie oversight of their six children–Maddox, 15, Pax, 13, Zahara, 12, Shiloh, 10, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 8–with Pitt continuing his “therapeutic visits” with his family.
Pitt was cleared in a Child Services investigation following an incident aboard a private jet in 2016.
Despite sharing the spotlight with her kids at Saturday’s premiere, Jolie told told the BBC she spends most of her time at home with her children, away from show business.
“Right now, I’m going through a moment where there’s just, everybody’s in my room. Two hamsters and two dogs and two children at the moment,” she said. “It’s wonderful. But, usually I just wake up trying to figure out who’s going to get the dog out, who’s going to start the pancakes and did anybody brush their teeth.”
Asked about the next chapter of her life, Jolie said, “In five years’ time, I would like to be traveling around the world visiting my children, hoping that they’re just happy and doing really interesting things, I imagine, in many different parts of the world. And I’ll be supporting them.”
The U.N. Humanitarian Envoy added: “Everything I do, my hope, is that I represent something, and I represent the right things to my children and I give them the right sense of what they’re capable of, and the world as it should be seen — not through the prism of Hollywood or through a certain kind of life, but really take them into the world where they have a really good sense of the come-round of people.”
Jolie’s new film, “First They Killed My Father,” which chronicles the Khmer Rouge’s genocide, is set to premiere later this year on Netflix.
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