Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s daughter has come a long way.
“I’m so proud,” her dance teacher, choreographer Kolanie Marks, gushed in the caption of an Aug. 24 Instagram video of Shiloh showing off her moves. Marks, who’s previously joked that he’s her “adopted uncle,” added that her “confidence is growing and building.”
But in the past few years, her dad hasn’t been around to witness her remarkable evolution.
“Shiloh hasn’t spent much time with Brad, especially since she turned 18 in May, when she legally filed to drop his last name,” says a source to In Touch Weekly. “She hired her own lawyer and everything.”
As an adult, she can “finally talk” about Brad, adds the source, “and through these court documents, she is basically telling the world she cut Brad out of her life.”
On Aug. 19, her request was granted: She’s now officially Shiloh Nouvel Jolie. “It’s such a public disavowal,” says the source, noting that despite years of drama with Angelina over the kids, “Brad was blindsided. He’s absolutely heartbroken.”
Shiloh’s lawyer explained the official process for declaring her intentions. “As Shiloh’s attorney, I am required to publish a legal notice because the law in California requires that of anyone who wants to change their name. The legal notice was published in the Los Angeles Times, as is required,” explained Peter Levine, calling Shiloh a “young adult who made an independent and significant decision following painful events.”
Those events are, of course, already well documented. Since their abrupt split following an infamous fight on a private plane in 2016, Angelina, 49, and Brad, 60, have waged nasty legal battles over the kids as well as Chateau Miraval, the French vineyard that used to be their family home.
In court documents filed in April, the actress shared more details from inside the absusive Jolie-Pitt household, alleging that “his history of physical abuse of [her] started well before” that fateful night on the plane, during which she had previously accused him of drunkenly lunging at the kids, choking one striking another in the face: “They are all frightened. Many were crying.”
While acknowledging he had a serious problem with alcohol, Brad has denied the allegations, and no charges were ever filed.
“His relationship with the kids obviously changed dramatically after that traumatic insident, and amends needed to be made,” says the source. “But nobody will believe what happened behind closed doors after Brad was out of the house he thinks Angelina slowly poisoned the children against him and strongly influenced their decision to distance themselves from him.”
A former staffer recently shed some light on the subject. Security company owner Tony Webb, who worked for Angelina for 20 years and is still employed by Brad, claimed in bombshell legal documents in May that an employee of his overheard Angelina “encouraging [the kids] to avoid spending time with Mr.Pitt during custody testified visits” and claimed that she threatened to sue if he testified to that at a custody hearing as planned, as per Yahoo Entertainment.
The kids’ voices were heard during a custody battle. “Three of the children have asked to testify,” Angelina claimed in 2020 court documents related to the custody arrangement.
A judge would not let them (although it’s believed Maddox, 23, did go under oath at some point), but reportedly, to make his decision, the judge relied on expert testimony from people the kids spoke to during the process.
“So Shiloh’s voice was considered,” says the source. “And she’s bound to eventually tell her side of the story publicly. Imagine all the burning questions that could be answered about what their home life was like, what really happened on the plane, and what Angelina has told them about their father.”
While none of the other children have made a statement as publicly as Shiloh, several have expressed their feelings. “Your four youngest children tremble in fear when in your presence, “Pax, 20, reportedly wrote in an Instagram post on Father’s Day in 2020, slamming the Oscar winner as “an awful human being” and a “world-class-a--hole.”
The others have been more subtle about their rejections. “What happens, happens,” Maddox awkwardly shrugged in 2019 when asked if his father would be visiting him while he attended college in South Korea. Brad’s eldest daughter, 19, announced herself as Zahara Jolie at a sorority event at Atlanta’s Spelman College last year. And in the Playbill credits for the Outsiders, which Angelina is producing, Vivienne, 16, also recently revealed she no longer goes by Pitt.
As he battled for custody for years, Brad vowed never to give up hope on his children. “He’ll never stop loving them and trying to have a relationship with them. Obviously he’s got no legal recourse regarding the adult children, but he’ll keep fighting to see the twins,” says the source. “He was truly optimistic for a long time about eventually being able to turn things around, but that’s looking more and more unlikely. And Brad knows Angie is sitting back and enjoying every minute of it.”
“Of all the kids, he was always closest to Shiloh, “the source says of the young lady, whose birth in Namibia in 2006 was heralded as the arrival of the “chosen one” in tongue-in-cheek headlines around the world.
“But from the beginning, Angie was always more focused on Maddox, Pax, Zahara,” says the source, noting that the actress famously admitted she felt ”less inclination to feel for” Shiloh because she was born privileged.
Angelina even confessed she had to “consciously” make sure [she doesn’t] ignore her needs.’ As a result, Brad’s little mini-me “definitely grew up as a daddy’s girl,” says the source. “It was clear she adored him.” And he never stopped doting her. “It brings a tear to the eye, yeah,” Brad recently gushed of Shiloh’s dance skills. “She’s very beautiful.”
