As the dust finally settles on Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s divorce saga, Jennifer Aniston's parting words to the Oscar-winning actress have resurfaced.
What was meant to be a polite exchange between two of Hollywood's leading ladies became the precursor to one of the most talked-about celebrity controversies in showbiz.
In a 2005 interview with Vanity Fair, Aniston recalled that she had met Jolie only once at the time.
Highlights
- Jennifer Aniston‘s parting words to Angelina Jolie resurfaced amid the latter's divorce settlement with Brad Pitt.
- Aniston and Pitt had announced their legal separation on January 7, 2005, after a four-and-a-half-year marriage.
- Within months of Pitt and Aniston's split, the actor was pictured with Jolie frolicking on Kenya’s Diani Beach with her son Maddox.
- “The world was shocked, and I was shocked,” Aniston said at the time.
Jennifer Aniston's candid thoughts about her ex-husband Brad Pitt resurfaced amid his divorce settlement with Angelina Jolie
Image credits: MJ Kim / Getty Images
“It was on the lot of Friends—I pulled over and introduced myself,” she said about her encounter with the Maria actress.
She then spoke about how her then-husband was excited to be working with her on the hit spy comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which they began shooting for in August 2004.
“I said, ‘Brad is so excited about working with you. I hope you guys have a really good time,’” Aniston recalled.
Aniston and Brad announced their legal separation on January 7, 2005, after a four-and-a-half-year marriage
Image credits: Evan Agostini / Getty Images
In the same interview, the veteran actress spoke about going through a tough time back then because her hit show Friends was wrapping up after a successful, decade-long run. She also remembered how Pitt began withdrawing from her at the same time.
“He was gone,” she said.
When she reached out to him for support, she remembered not receiving any and said he didn’t even show up for the show’s final taping.
“I said, ‘Brad is so excited about working with you. I hope you guys have a really good time,’” Aniston told Jolie as the shooting for Mr. & Mrs. Smith began
Image credits: Jennifer Aniston
Image credits: Jennifer Aniston
“He just wasn’t there for me,” she added.
After their marriage of four and a half years, Aniston and Pitt announced their legal separation on January 7, 2005, in a joint statement.
About three months later, Aniston and the rest of the world laid eyes on pap photographs of Pitt and Jolie frolicking on Kenya's Diani Beach with her son Maddox.
“The world was shocked, and I was shocked,” she told the outlet.
Pitt memorably appeared onscreen with his then-wife for the first time in a Friends episode from season 8
The photographs, published by Us Weekly, confirmed to the world that the A-listers were officially a couple.
Jann Wenner, who owned shares in Us Weekly, later claimed in his memoir that Jolie herself was part of tipping off the magazine and orchestrating the pap photos.
“We got the photo, we got the proof, we had the worldwide scoop, the debut of Brangelina. The tipster was Angelina,” Wenner wrote.
By January 2006, the couple went public with their romance and confirmed that Jolie was pregnant with their first biological child Shiloh, born in May the same year.
“It was extremely hurtful to Jen that he was seen with another woman so quickly after they were separated,” actress Andrea Bendewald, one of Aniston’s closest friends since they were teenagers, told Vanity Fair in the 2005 cover story.
“The world was shocked, and I was shocked,” Aniston said in 2006 after seeing the first pap photos of her ex-husband and Jolie together in 2005
Image credits: Jennifer Aniston
Image credits: Jennifer Aniston
One of the false narratives swirling at the time of Aniston and Pitt’s divorce was that she refused to have his baby because she wanted to focus on her career.
“A man divorcing would never be accused of choosing career over children,” she said back then. “That really pissed me off. I’ve never in my life said I didn’t want to have children. I did and I do and I will!”
“The women that inspire me are the ones who have careers and children; why would I want to limit myself? I’ve always wanted to have children, and I would never give up that experience for a career,” she continued. “I want to have it all.”
Meanwhile, Pitt went on to be a father to six children—Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, and twins Vivienne and Knox—with Jolie.
Their whirlwind romance lasted a decade until they officially tied the knot in 2014.
“Angelina is exhausted, but she is relieved this one part is over,” the Oscar winner's lawyer said following her divorce settlement with Pitt
Image credits: Angelina Jolie
Image credits: Angelina Jolie
Their divorce battle lasted far longer than their actual marriage. The power couple were married for two years before Jolie filed for divorce in 2016.
After custody disputes over their six children and some legal tug-of-war over their shared assets, the former couple reached a divorce settlement in December 2024.
“More than eight years ago, Angelina filed for divorce from Mr. Pitt. She and the children left all of the properties they had shared with Mr. Pitt, and since that time she has focused on finding peace and healing for their family,” Jolie’s lawyer James Simon of Hersh Mannis said this week.
“This is just one part of a long ongoing process that started eight years ago,” the lawyer added. “Frankly, Angelina is exhausted, but she is relieved this one part is over.”