Angelina Jolie opened up about her split from Brad Pitt in a new interview with The New York Times, saying: ”None of it’s easy. It’s very, very difficult, a very painful situation, and I just want my family healthy.”
The actress, 42, added of the kids, ”They’re getting better.”
The two announced their shock split in September 2016 after 12 years together, two of those married. A custody battle involving their six children — Maddox, 16; Pax, 13; Zahara, 12; Shiloh, 11; Vivienne, 9, and Knox, 9, followed.
Now, Angelina lives in an L.A. mansion which used to be owned by filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille, and says she had a hard time accepting she would really be moving out of Brad’s house.
“It took me a few months to realize that I was really going to have to do it. That there was going to have to be a home. Another home….That there was going to have to be another base regardless of everything,” she says, adding that “It’s like living in a fraternity.”
The kids are home schooled, nd spend much of the day under Angelina’s watch.
“They really help me so much. We’re really such a unit,” she says. “They’re the best friends I’ve ever had. Nobody in my life has ever stood by me more.”
As for life after Brad, she explains, “It has a lot of moments.”
“It’s happy. Happy and light, and we needed that,” she says. “None of it’s easy. It’s very, very difficult, a very painful situation, and I just want my family healthy.”
She was promoting First They Killed My Father, which received a standing ovation at the Telluride Film Festival, where it had its premiere. Netflix will begin streaming it Sept. 15.
Of the movie, she hints it may have been what gave her the final push to leave Brad.
“The real will to survive, and the strength of the human spirit, and the love of the human family becomes so present, and that’s how we should all be living,” she says.
“When you’re around it, it’s quite contagious, and you know to learn from it.”
