Angelina Jolie is speaking candidly about an incredibly difficult time in her life—her divorce from Brad Pitt—in a rare interview with WSJ. Magazine.
The Oscar-winning actor, who is playing opera singer Maria Callas in an upcoming film, said during the talk that she has had some hesitations about the role, as she notices familiar signs of tension taking over her body.
“My body reacts very strongly to stress,” Jolie said. “My blood sugar goes up and down.” She also revealed: “I suddenly had Bell’s palsy six months before my divorce.”
Jolie and Pitt announced their split in 2016, after an alleged argument on an airplane involving their children. In the years since, the actors have been embroiled in a difficult legal battle, specifically over custody of their six kids: Maddox, 22, Pax, 20, Zahara, 18, Shiloh, 17, and twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline, 15.
“We had to heal,” Jolie said of herself and her kids after the divorce. She did not reveal any more details about the cause of the split. “There are things we needed to heal from.”
Since 2016, Jolie has been dedicated to her kids, her film projects, philanthropy, and now, her new fashion brand, Atelier Jolie. So, she revealed, she has not been dating.
She told the magazine that in Los Angeles she “doesn’t really have a social life,” and the only people she really spends time with are her children. “They are the closest people to me and my life, and they’re my close friends,” she said. “We’re seven very different people, which is our strength.”
Outside of her family, the Those Who Wish Me Dead star said, “I realized my closest friends are refugees.” Of her inner circle, “Maybe four out of six of the women that I am close to are from war and conflict,” Jolie revealed.
Jolie, who was born in Los Angeles, also said she wishes she could leave the Hollywood bubble and spend more time in Cambodia, where she adopted Maddox and filmed 2017’s First They Killed My Father—but that her legal woes with Pitt don’t allow her to.
“It’s part of what happened after my divorce. I lost the ability to live and travel as freely. I will move when I can,” she said. “I grew up in quite a shallow place. Of all the places in the world, Hollywood is not a healthy place. So you seek authenticity.”
