Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's divorce has long outlasted the pair's rather short-lived marriage, which spanned just two years, but now proceedings are threatening to overtake the entire length of their relationship.
This year marks the seventh year of unfinalised divorce for the celebrity couple, who announced their plan to legally part ways back in September 2016. In the near-decade since, a lot of mud has been slung, including the recently resurfaced rant from the couple's second oldest son, Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt, in which he called his father a "world class a**hole," as well as a "f***ing awful human being."
And while Brad and Angelina have stayed relatively schtum when it comes to addressing their divorce drama in interviews, the few words that have made it into the public eye have spoken volumes. Plus, there's always a new legal filing to rifle through, and their inherently biased nature makes for far less reticent reading.
Here are some of the most dramatic quotes from their septennial split.
1. 'Vindictive'
In case you don't know, Brangelina's winery has become a rather sore spot in divorce proceedings, with Pitt's legal team claiming that Jolie knowingly damaged the wine brand, Miraval, when she sold her stake to Russian oligarch Yuri Shefler in 2021 (celebrities, they're just like us!) - a decision he called "vindictive".
“Her decision to terminate negotiations with Pitt was intentional and pretextual,” court documents stated. “As will be demonstrated at trial, Jolie’s actions were unlawful, severely and intentionally damaging Pitt and unjustly enriching herself.”
2. 'Petulant child'
Then, in July 2023, Jolie’s legal team hit back, accusing Pitt of acting like a “petulant child” over the sale of her stake, with claims that Pitt has engaged in a “blatant money grab” and has spent more time on vanity projects around the winery site, like building a recording studio and renovating the swimming pool, than on the vineyard and winemaking process. The best quote in the filing comes when Jolie's legal team claims that Pitt “deals in illusions, not dirt and grapes”.
3. 'I was boozing too much. It's just become a problem'
This was the most telling line from Pitt's 2017 GQ cover story, which came hot on the heels of allegations of abuse against the actor. It all happened on a private jet flight in 2016, where there was a reported altercation between Pitt and his eldest son, Maddox, who was 15 years old at the time, prompting an FBI investigation (all closed with no charges). Jolie claimed Pitt was drunk, which meant this admission to GQ carried a lot of weight. Pitt also shared how he had embraced sobriety in the same interview.
4. 'I hadn't cried in 20 years'
More talk of Pitt's emotional gear change came in 2019, when he was interviewed by Sir Anthony Hopkins for Interview Magazine, and made a rare reference to his children, implying that he maintains a healthy relationship with his kids. "I am quite famously a not-crier," he told Sir Anthony. "I hadn’t cried in, like, 20 years, and now I find myself, at this latter stage, much more moved — moved by my kids, moved by friends, moved by the news."
5. 'World class a**hole'
It appears Pitt may not have a great relationship with all his kids, though, or at least he didn't back in June 2020. That year, on Father's Day, Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt took to Instagram stories to say: "Happy Father’s Day to this world class a**hole," under a photo of Pitt receiving an Oscar, as seen by MailOnline. "You time and time again prove yourself to be a terrible and despicable person.
"You have no consideration or empathy toward your four youngest children who tremble in fear when in your presence," MailOnline reports the private post as saying. "You will never understand the damage you have done to my family because you are incapable of doing so.
"You have made the lives of those closest to me a constant hell. You may tell yourself and the world whatever you want, but the truth will come to light someday. So, Happy Father’s Day, you f***ing awful human being!!!”
6. 'He won't own anything he didn't do'
When Jolie's claims of abuse resurfaced, Brad's lawyer Anne Kiley weighed into the situation publicly, saying point-blank: "Brad has owned everything he’s responsible for from day one — unlike the other side. He’s not going to own anything he didn’t do. He has been on the receiving end of every type of personal attack and misrepresentation.
“Thankfully, the various public authorities the other side has tried to use against him over the past six years have made their own independent decisions. Brad will continue to respond in court as he has consistently done.”
7. 'I don’t feel like I’ve been myself for a decade'
In Jolie's most recent Vogue interview, she made some rare comments about her personal life and how her children "saved" her from what could have been a dark period. “I was 26 when I became a mother,” she told Vogue. “My entire life changed. Having children saved me – and taught me to be in this world differently. I think, recently, I would’ve gone under in a much darker way had I not wanted to live for them." It's one of the few things Jolie has said openly, and not via her legal team, in regards to the divorce.
She also confessed that had been feeling low for the last ten years, alluding to her relationship with Pitt. “I feel a bit down these days,” she said. “I don’t feel like I’ve been myself for a decade, in a way, which I don’t want to get into.”
She concluded by saying, "I’m hoping to change many aspects of my life."
8. 'Things got bad'
Angelina also addressed the period before the divorce in an interview with Vanity Fair, where she said candidly: "Things got bad. I didn’t want to use that word... Things became 'difficult'."
She also eludes to the private jet incident. "We’re all just healing from the events that led to the filing," she cryptically explained. "[The children are] not healing from divorce. They’re healing from some... from life, from things in life."
9. 'I think it’s very important to cry in the shower and not in front of them'
In the same Vanity Fair interview, Jolie is honest about the emotional burden of divorce, but explains how she doesn't want her children to know the true extent of it. "We care for each other and care about our family, and we are both working towards the same goal [...] I was very worried about my mother, growing up — a lot. I do not want my children to be worried about me. 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."
10. 'I had lost myself a bit'
In another candid interview (more common for Angelina than for Brad), Jolie told French magazine Madame Figaro in 2019: "I had lost myself a bit,” explaining how she was in a “period of transition, like a homecoming, a return to [herself]”.
Jolie said that she was feeling “smaller, almost insignificant, even if it wasn’t necessarily obvious", adding: "I felt a deep and genuine sadness, I was hurt."
11. 'It reminded me of painful times'
When Jolie announced her intent to sell her stake in Miraval, she sent Pitt an email explaining her motives. A key driver, it appears, was the association with alcohol, which Pitt himself admitted had become a problem by the end of their relationship. “I was shaken by the recent imagery that was released to sell the alcohol. I find it irresponsible and not something that I would want the children to see. It reminded me of painful times,” she wrote in the email, saying she “[couldn't] be involved, publicly or privately, in a business based on alcohol, when alcoholic behavior harmed our family so deeply”.
