The actress speaks openly about her separation from Brad Pitt, last September
Angelina Jolie has given two interviews to the magazine and to the newspaper in which Angelina Jolie has spoken openly about her separation from the also actor Brad Pitt, in September of last year. Jolie has confessed that the situation she has experienced after her divorce has been difficult and "very painful", but that the whole process has made her "a little stronger".
"None of this is easy, it is very, very difficult, a very painful situation, and I just want my family to be well," said the actress, adding that her main concern is her children. "Everything else is secondary".
"It took me a few months to realize that I had to [separate myself], that I was going to have to make another life independent of everything, that I would have to have a home, another home," she assured. The actress has also assured that not only did she make the decision because of the much-commented controversial incident on the plane -in which Brad Pitt, allegedly drunk, would have assaulted her children-, but that it was one of the triggers for leaving home with their six children and file for divorce.
Jolie received the two journalists at her new home in the Los Feliz neighborhood, in Los Angeles (California, USA), a house that also belonged to film director Cecil B. DeMille - author of blockbusters such as 'The Ten Commandments' or 'King of Kings'. Jolie and her children have moved there after spending nine months renting after her divorce.
The actress is immersed in the promotion of her new film of hers as a director, 'They took him away: Memories of a Cambodian girl'. "I have not worked for more than a year because they needed me at home," he said, referring to his children: Maddox (16 years old), Pax (13), Zahara (12), Shiloh (11), and the twins Knox and Vivienne, of 9.
And she confesses that her experience in Cambodia and with her people and, above all, having learned in depth the story of Loung Ung, the writer on whom the film is based, has helped her cope with the divorce process. "The true desire to survive and the strength of the human spirit and the love of a human family become so present... This is how all of us should live. When you're around it, it's very contagious. And you learn from it." Jolie, consciously or unconsciously, spoke of her reality during her years with Pitt.
"Loung has had so many horrors in her life... But she's also had a lot of love, which is what makes today okay. That's something I have to remember," Jolie says.
"My children are the best friends I've ever had. No one in my life has been closer to me," she says of her six offspring, the three oldest adopted and the three youngest biological, the result of her 12-year relationship with Pitt.
And although they are not yet fully recovered, Jolie believes that they are ready to live "new adventures". "We've all been in a bit of a lockdown," but now "they're just itching to get out into the world again."
Maddox, in the credits of the film
The older man has already begun to get involved in his mother's work and appears as a producer in the credits of his new film, which takes place in Cambodia, the country where Maddox was adopted.
"I wanted Maddox to see how extraordinary his country is," she says of a film based on a true story of a survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocide.
In interviews, she has also talked about how he misses her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, who died of ovarian cancer ten years ago. Due to this background, the actress decided to undergo a double mastectomy and ovarian removal and she points out that "so far" her health is good. Her doctors had estimated that Angelina Jolie had an 87% chance of suffering from breast cancer and a 50% chance of suffering from ovarian cancer, so she decided to undergo double surgery.
And about her 'ice queen' image of hers, she claims that she's used to not fitting in. "I never expect to be the one that everyone understands or likes and that's okay, because I know who I am, and the kids know who I am."
