Affair rumours and a custody battle: Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's complicated relationship.

Since Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie first met on the set of their 2005 film Mr and Mrs Smith, they have been one of Hollywood's most talked  about celebrity couples.

That was until, of course, Angelina Jolie filed for divorce in 2016.

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For the first time since their split was announced, Jolie, 45, has shared with British Vogue that the decision to end their 12-year relationship was for the wellbeing of their family – and the six children they share together.

"I separated for the wellbeing of my family. It was the right decision. I continue to focus on their healing. Some have taken advantage of my silence, and the children see lies about themselves in the media, but I remind them that they know their own truth and their own minds. In fact, they are six very brave, very strong young people," she explained.

While the days of 'Brangelina' are well and truly behind us, we decided to take a look back at the former couple's 12-year relationship.

Image: 20th Century Fox. 

In 2004, Jolie and Pitt filmed the spy rom-com Mr and Mrs Smith together. In the movie, they played a relatively average, married couple who were also assassins, unbeknownst to each other.

At the time, Pitt, now 56, was married to his wife of four years, Jennifer Aniston, while Jolie was a single mum to her first adopted child Maddox. 

Although the pair didn't announce it until much later on, it was during filming that the pair fell in love. 

"Because of the film, we ended up being brought together to do all these crazy things, and I think we found this strange friendship and partnership that kind of just suddenly happened," Jolie told Vogue in 2006.

"I think a few months in I realised, 'God, I can’t wait to get to work.' Anything we had to do with each other, we just found a lot of joy in it together and a lot of real teamwork. We just became kind of a pair," she added.

"It took until, really, the end of the shoot for us, I think, to realise that it might mean something more than we’d earlier allowed ourselves to believe. And both knowing that the reality of that was a big thing, something that was going to take a lot of serious consideration."

In January 2005, after five years of marriage, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston announced their separation.

Image: Getty. 

This came as a shock to not only Aniston and her friends, but also to the world around them as the pair were seen as the ultimate noughtie's celebrity couple.

In July 2005, only a few months after their separation was announced (but before the divorce was finalised), Pitt and Jolie featured in a 60-page spread for W Magazine titled "Domestic Bliss", dressed as a 1960s style married couple with five children. A photoshoot that was completely conceptualised by Pitt.

Image: Getty. 

People were furious.

"You want to shake the shit out of him and say, 'Your timing sucks!' He’s made some choices that have been tremendously insensitive," a friend of Aniston's shared in Vanity Fair.

And his ex-wife-to-be agreed.

"There's a sensitive chip that's missing [from Pitt]," Aniston said, responding to the photo shoot.

"Is it odd timing? Yeah, but it's not my life. He makes his choices. He can do – whatever. We're [soon to be] divorced and you can see why."

An executive at Pitt's production company, Plan B, agreed, adding that the only thing that would break Aniston's heart even more was if the new couple had a baby together.

"My worst fear is that Jen will have to face them having a baby together soon, because that would be beyond painful," Kristin Hahn shared.

During that same month, Jolie adopted her second child Zahara from Ethiopia. Pitt accompanied her.

Then, three months after Aniston and Pitt's divorced was finalised, Pitt and Jolie announced that they were expecting their first child together in January 2006. 

In the same month, the couple also got a judge to grant Pitt legal adoption of Jolie's two children, Maddox and Zahara.

In May 2006, their first biological child, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt was born. 

The couple's red carpet debut in December 2006. Image: Getty. 

By September, the couple announced the launch of their charity, the Jolie/Pitt Foundation. Three months after that, they were off to Vietnam, to adopt their fourth child, Pax.

A few years later, in May 2008, the couple attended the Cannes Film Festival together, where they confirmed they were expecting twins. 

In 2008 at the Cannes Film Festival. Image: Getty. 

Listen to The Spill, Mamamia's daily entertainment podcast. In this episode, co-hosts Kee Reece and Laura Brodnik discuss Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's split. Post continues below.

By July, Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline were born.

"Yes, it is chaos but we are managing it and having a wonderful time," Jolie shared at the time.

When explaining the choice of names, Pitt explained, "Vivienne came to us early, as if she named herself. She has always been Viv. And Marcheline is to honour Angie's late mother. Knox is a family name — my grandfather's — and Leon is a classic French name." 

In 2010, during the promotion for Jolie's film, The Tourist, her co-star Johnny Depp made a comment about the fact that he assumed Brad Pitt was her husband, considering how many children they have together.

At The Tourist premiere in December 2010. Image: Getty. 

When discussing the film, he specifically mentioned that Jolie had a hard time during film, as paparazzi followed her everywhere. "Poor thing, dogged by paparazzi, her and her husband, Brad... all their kids," Depp told Vanity Fair.

Following Depp's comments, fans began assuming the pair had secretly married. However, they had not.

But finally, in April 2012, the couple confirmed they were engaged.

Two months before they became engaged. Image: Getty. 

The ring. Image: Getty. 

"Yes, it’s confirmed. It is a promise for the future and their kids are very happy. There's no date set at this time," Pitt's manager Cynthia Pett-Dante told People.

On August 23rd, 2014, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie married in Chateau Miraval in France.

Image: People. 

Their six children were all in attendance. Maddox and Pax walked their mum down the aisle, Zahara and Vivienne were flower girls, and Shiloh and Knox were ring bearers. The actress' dress itself was covered in drawings created by all of them.

In November of the same year, Pitt and Jolie starred in their second film together, By The Sea, which Jolie wrote and directed.

It was at this point that rumours began circulating, suggesting that their relationship was in trouble.

Image: Universal Pictures. 

"I wanted us to do some serious work together. I thought it would be a good way for us to communicate. In some ways it was, and in some ways we learned some things. But there was a heaviness, probably, during that situation that carried on, and it wasn’t because of the film," Jolie told The Hollywood Reporter.

During 2014, there were also reports that both of them had been involved with other people. Some sources suggested that Jolie had an affair with her Unbroken co-star Jack O'Connell, while others suggested that Pitt became involved with Sienna Miller and Marion Cotillard. 

Nothing was ever confirmed.

At the By The Sea premiere in 2015. Image: Getty. 

On March 2015, Jolie shared in her second op-ed for The New York Times that she had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed as a preventative measure.

"I called my husband in France, who was on a plane within hours. The beautiful thing about such moments in life is that there is so much clarity. You know what you live for and what matters. It is polarising, and it is peaceful," she wrote.

Then, after just over two years of marriage, Jolie filed for divorce on September 20, 2016, citing "irreconcilable differences". She asked for full custody of their six children.

Days later, news broke out that an altercation that took place during a flight from Nice, France to Los Angeles ultimately sparked the reason for the divorce; where Pitt was drinking heavily and allegedly physically hurt their son, Maddox.

But after the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services and FBI investigated into the case, they cleared him.

In January 2017, both parties announced that they wanted to keep the divorce out of the public eye. However, both opened up about their personal feelings about the situation.

"I was really on my back and chained to a system when Child Services was called," Pitt said. "And you know, after that, we've [he and Jolie] been able to work together to sort this out. We're both doing our best. I heard one lawyer say, 'No one wins in court – it's just a matter of who gets hurt worse.' And it seems to be true, you spend a year just focused on building a case to prove your point and why you're right and why they're wrong, and it's just an investment in vitriolic hatred," he told GQ in May 2017.

He also opened up about his relationship with alcohol and the decision to quit.

"I enjoy wine very, very much, but I just ran it to the ground. I had to step away for a minute. And truthfully I could drink a Russian under the table with his own vodka. I was a professional. I was good," he shared.

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Announcing: Brad Pitt in America's National Parks for the summer issue of GQ Style. Link in bio to see all 3 covers. [📸 @ryanmcginleystudios]

A post shared by  GQ Style (@gqstyle) on May 2, 2017 at 6:02pm PDT

While Jolie shared with Vanity Fair that despite the complicated divorce and custody battle, the couple want the same outcome.

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September cover star Angelina Jolie opens up about life after Brad, her struggles with Bell's palsy, putting her family and her health first, and finding catharsis in Cambodia while making her most personal film yet. Photograph by @mertalas and @macpiggott.

A post shared by  Vanity Fair (@vanityfair) on Jul 26, 2017 at 9:47am PDT

"We care for each other and care about our family, and we are both working towards the same goal," she shared.

Despite their personal admissions, the divorce continued for two years. And in August 2018, Jolie accused Pitt of not paying meaningful child support, which he denied and claimed he had paid her over $8 million. 

"The aim of Angelina’s routine court filing is to provide closure to the marriage in a way that clears a path toward the next stage of their lives and allows her and Brad to recommit as devoted co-parents to their children," the statement in the court filing read.

And now in 2020, a year after they finalised their divorce, a source has shared that the two are finally communicating and co-parenting together.

"Brad and Angelina have come a very long way and they're finally in a place where they both want to work together to raise their kids. They have no plans to reconcile and any communication between them is regarding their children's needs and future," the source told Elle. 



Feature Image: 20th Century Fox/Getty.