Angelina Jolie’s “fighting spirit” has returned, nearly one decade after her split from ex-husband Brad Pitt.
“I think my fighting spirit is finally back,” the actress shared with Variety, in an interview published Wednesday.
The 52-year-old confessed that she “lost it for a bit,” adding that “it got kind of taken down a little bit.”
Jolie credited her and Pitt’s six children — Maddox, 24, Pax, 21, Zahara, 20, Shiloh, 20, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 17 — with helping her return to herself.
“It’s coming back in large part thanks to my children, who are now older, and encouraging it,” she explained of her “very encouraging” brood.
Her kids, notably, want Jolie to “get out and do things” — especially exploring “aspects of [her]self that maybe [she] hadn’t felt as free to do” in the past.
“My kids are almost all 18, so now they want to see me traveling the world,” the “Maleficent” star added. “They know me more than anybody, and they still like me, which says a lot.
“I had kind of quit acting before my divorce,” she continued. “I was focusing on directing, and I thought I’d be doing my international work.”
However, the “only way to be home more and for short periods of time being away or to make a good amount of money was to go back to acting.”
After calling it quits with Pitt, 62, in September 2016, Jolie began “taking things that were short or close by or [that she] could take” her kids to.
The former couple finally finalized their contentious divorce in December 2024 after more than eight years of legal proceedings.
We hear Pitt, who has been dating Ines de Ramon since 2022, has “virtually no contact” with their children.
In May 2024, Shiloh became the first of the six to legally drop Pitt’s last name.
Maddox filed the same request in May, listing the reasons as “personal,” with Zahara subsequently becoming the third child to do so in June.
Pitt has reportedly been “devastated” by his kids’ name changes but is allegedly “not ready to give up” on them.
Earlier this month, a source exclusively told us, that Angelina “seems quite pleased with herself about the total success of her long-standing, intense, deliberate effort to alienate her children from their father.”
However, a separate insider alleged, “Angelina participated in years of family therapy with Brad and the children for everyone to try to heal after the events that led her to file for divorce.
“The children are now adults and make their own decisions, which deserve respect. If they choose to distance themselves from him, it comes from that pain and harm.”
