Brangelina
Encyclopedia
Brangelina is a celebrity supercouple
Supercouple
A supercouple or super couple is a popular or financially wealthy pairing that intrigues and fascinates the public in an intense or even obsessive fashion...

 consisting of American actors Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...

 and Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie is an American actress. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and was named Hollywood's highest-paid actress by Forbes in 2009 and 2011. Jolie is noted for promoting humanitarian causes as a Goodwill Ambassador for the...

. Pitt has appeared in over 40 major films, including 12 Monkeys (1995), Ocean's Eleven
Ocean's Eleven (2001 film)
Ocean's Eleven is a 2001 American comedy-crime caper and remake of the 1960 Rat Pack caper film of the same name. The 2001 film was directed by Steven Soderbergh and features an ensemble cast including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Andy García, and Julia Roberts. The film was...

(2001), and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (film)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a 2008 American fantasy-drama film directed by David Fincher. The screenplay by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord is loosely based on the 1922 short story of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald...

(2008), while Jolie has appeared in over 30 major films, including Girl, Interrupted
Girl, Interrupted (film)
Girl, Interrupted is a 1999 drama film about a teenager's 18-month stay at a mental institution, starring Winona Ryder, Brittany Murphy, Angelina Jolie, Whoopi Goldberg and Vanessa Redgrave, with Jolie winning an Academy Award for her performance....

(1999), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is a 2001 adventure thriller film adapted from the Tomb Raider video game series. Directed by Simon West and starring Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft, it was released in U.S. theaters on June 15, 2001. The film was a commercial success...

(2001), and Changeling
Changeling (film)
Changeling is a 2008 American drama film directed by Clint Eastwood and written by J. Michael Straczynski. Based on real-life events in 1928 Los Angeles, the film stars Angelina Jolie as a woman who is reunited with her missing son—only to realize he is an impostor. She confronts the city...

(2008). Their relationship began after they starred together in Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005 film)
Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a 2005 American romantic comedy action film directed by Doug Liman and written by Simon Kinberg. The original music score was composed by John Powell...

(2005). They have three adopted children, Maddox, Pax, Zahara, and three biological children, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne.

Background

Pitt was engaged for six months to actress Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Kate Paltrow is an American actress and singer. She made her acting debut on stage in 1990 and started appearing in films in 1991. After appearing in several films throughout the decade, Paltrow gained early notice for her work in films such as Se7en and Emma...

, his co-star in Seven
Seven (film)
Seven is a 1995 American thriller film, which also contains horror and neo-noir elements, directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. It was distributed by New Line Cinema and stars Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, R...

(1995), whom he dated from December 1994 to June 1997. In May 1998, Pitt met Friends
Friends
Friends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in Manhattan. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television...

actress Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Joanna Aniston is an American actress, film director, and producer, best known for her role as Rachel Green on the television sitcom Friends, a role which earned her an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.Aniston has also enjoyed a successful film career,...

; they married on July 29, 2000. Despite their relationship being considered a rare Hollywood success, Pitt and Aniston separated in January 2005 and divorced on October 2, 2005.

On March 28, 1996, Jolie married British actor Jonny Lee Miller
Jonny Lee Miller
Jonathan "Jonny" Lee Miller is an English actor. During the initial days he was best known for his roles in the 1996 films Trainspotting and Hackers...

, her co-star in Hackers (1995). Jolie and Miller separated in September 1997 and divorced on February 3, 1999. After a two-month courtship, Jolie married actor Billy Bob Thornton
Billy Bob Thornton
Billy Bob Thornton is an American actor, screenwriter, director and musician. Thornton gained early recognition as a cast member on the CBS sitcom Hearts Afire and in several early 1990s films including On Deadly Ground and Tombstone...

, her co-star in Pushing Tin
Pushing Tin
Pushing Tin is a 1999 comedy-drama film directed by Mike Newell. It centers on a cocky air traffic controller who quarrels over proving "who's more of a man" with fellow employee Bell...

(1999), on May 5, 2000. Jolie and Thornton announced the adoption of a son from Cambodia in March 2002, but separated three months later. Their divorce was finalized on May 27, 2003.

Relationship

Pitt and Jolie met in 2004 on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005 film)
Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a 2005 American romantic comedy action film directed by Doug Liman and written by Simon Kinberg. The original music score was composed by John Powell...

(2005). In early 2005, their association became the subject of a much-publicized Hollywood scandal, when they were alleged to have begun an affair while Pitt was still married to Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Joanna Aniston is an American actress, film director, and producer, best known for her role as Rachel Green on the television sitcom Friends, a role which earned her an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.Aniston has also enjoyed a successful film career,...

. Pitt and Jolie denied this on several occasions, but both admitted that they "fell in love" on the set. In 2005, Jolie explained, "To be intimate with a married man, when my own father
Jon Voight
Jonathan Vincent "Jon" Voight is an American actor. He has received an Academy Award, out of four nominations, and three Golden Globe Awards, out of nine nominations. Voight is the father of actress Angelina Jolie....

 cheated on my mother
Marcheline Bertrand
Marcia Lynne "Marcheline" Bertrand was an American actress and producer. She also co-founded the All Tribes Foundation, to culturally and economically benefit Native Americans, and the Give Love Give Life organization, to raise public awareness of women's cancers. Bertrand was the former wife of...

, is not something I could forgive. I could not look at myself in the morning if I did that. I wouldn't be attracted to a man who would cheat on his wife."

While Pitt and Jolie never publicly commented on the nature of their relationship, speculations continued throughout 2005. In April, one month after Aniston filed for divorce, a set of paparazzi photos emerged that showed Pitt, Jolie, and her son Maddox at a beach in Kenya, which seemed to confirm the rumors of a relationship between Pitt and Jolie. During the summer, Pitt and Jolie were seen together with increasing frequency, and most of the entertainment media considered them a couple, dubbing them "Brangelina". On January 11, 2006, Jolie confirmed to People
People (magazine)
In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Subscribers to this magazine received...

that she was pregnant with Pitt's child and thereby acknowledged their relationship for the first time in public.

An advocate for same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage is marriage between two persons of the same biological sex or social gender. Supporters of legal recognition for same-sex marriage typically refer to such recognition as marriage equality....

, Pitt told Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...

in October 2006 that he and Jolie would marry "when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able." He reaffirmed his stance to Parade
Parade (magazine)
Parade is an American nationwide Sunday newspaper magazine, distributed in more than 500 newspapers in the United States. It was founded in 1941 and is owned by Advance Publications. The most widely read magazine in the U.S., Parade has a circulation of 32.2 million and a readership of nearly 70...

in August 2009, and again to People in July 2011. In February 2010, Pitt and Jolie sued British tabloid News of the World
News of the World
The News of the World was a national red top newspaper published in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world, and at closure still had one of the highest English language circulations...

for falsely reporting that they were separating, a story that had been widely picked up by credible media outlets. The privacy claim was settled the following July for an undisclosed amount, which was donated to the couple's charity, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.

Children

On March 10, 2002, Jolie adopted her first child, seven-month-old Maddox Chivan, from an orphanage in Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh is the capital and largest city of Cambodia. Located on the banks of the Mekong River, Phnom Penh has been the national capital since the French colonized Cambodia, and has grown to become the nation's center of economic and industrial activities, as well as the center of security,...

, Cambodia. He was born as Rath Vibol on August 5, 2001 in a local village. Jolie applied for adoption after she had visited Cambodia twice, while filming Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is a 2001 adventure thriller film adapted from the Tomb Raider video game series. Directed by Simon West and starring Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft, it was released in U.S. theaters on June 15, 2001. The film was a commercial success...

(2001) and on a mission in her capacity as Goodwill Ambassador
UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador
UNHCR Goodwill Ambassadors are celebrity representatives of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees who use their talent and fame to advocate for refugees.-Current Ambassadors:...

 for the UNHCR. The adoption process was halted in December 2001 when the U.S. government banned adoptions from Cambodia amid allegations of child trafficking. Once the ban was lifted for the waiting families, she took custody of Maddox in Namibia, where she was filming Beyond Borders
Beyond Borders
Beyond Borders is a 2003 drama film about aid workers, directed by Martin Campbell and starring Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen. The original music score was composed by James Horner....

(2003). Although Jolie and her then-husband Billy Bob Thornton announced the adoption together, she in fact adopted Maddox as a single parent.

Jolie adopted a daughter, six-month-old Zahara Marley, from an orphanage in Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia...

, Ethiopia on July 6, 2005. Zahara was born as Yemsrach on January 8, 2005 in Awassa. At the time of the adoption, Jolie did not know whether her daughter was HIV positive, but Zahara later tested negative. Shortly after they returned to the United States, Zahara was hospitalized for dehydration and malnutrition. In November 2007, media outlets reported that Zahara's biological mother wanted her daughter back, but she denied these reports, saying she thought Zahara was "very fortunate" to have been adopted by Jolie.

Pitt accompanied Jolie when she traveled to Ethiopia to collect Zahara. Jolie later indicated that she and Pitt had made the decision to adopt from Ethiopia together. In December 2005, Pitt's publicist announced that Pitt was seeking to adopt Maddox and Zahara. To reflect this, Jolie filed a request to legally change her children's surnames from Jolie to Jolie-Pitt, which was granted on January 19, 2006. The adoptions were finalized soon after.

On May 27, 2006, Jolie gave birth to a daughter, Shiloh Nouvel, in Swakopmund
Swakopmund
Swakopmund is a city on the coast of northwestern Namibia, west of Windhoek, Namibia's capital. It is the capital of the Erongo administrative district. As a seaside resort, the weather is cooler here in December to January so the territorial administration moves to Swakopmund for these months...

, Namibia. Pitt confirmed that their newborn daughter would have a Namibian passport. Pitt and Jolie decided to sell the first pictures of Shiloh through the distributor Getty Images
Getty Images
Getty Images, Inc. is a stock photo agency, based in Seattle, Washington, USA. It is a supplier of stock images for business and consumers with an archive of 80 million still images and illustrations and more than 50,000 hours of stock film footage...

 themselves, rather than allowing paparazzi to make these valuable photographs. People paid a reported $4.1 million for the North American rights, while Hello!
Hello!
Hello is a weekly magazine specializing in celebrity news and human-interest stories, published in the United Kingdom since 1988. Hello is sister magazine to ¡Hola!, the Spanish weekly magazine launched in Spain in 1944...

obtained the British rights for a reported $3.5 million. All profits were donated to charities serving African children. In July, Madame Tussauds
Madame Tussauds
Madame Tussauds is a wax museum in London with branches in a number of major cities. It was founded by wax sculptor Marie Tussaud and was formerly known as "Madame Tussaud's", but the apostrophe is no longer used...

 in New York unveiled a wax figure of two-month-old Shiloh; it marked the first time an infant was recreated in wax by the museum.

On March 15, 2007, Jolie adopted a son, three-year-old Pax Thien, from an orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City
Ho Chi Minh City
Ho Chi Minh City , formerly named Saigon is the largest city in Vietnam...

, Vietnam. He was born as Pham Quang Sang on November 29, 2003 in the capital. She adopted Pax as a single parent, because Vietnam's adoption regulations do not allow unmarried couples to co-adopt. The following month, she filed a request to legally change her son's surname from Jolie to Jolie-Pitt, which was approved on May 31, 2007. She revealed that his first name, Pax, was suggested by her mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand
Marcheline Bertrand
Marcia Lynne "Marcheline" Bertrand was an American actress and producer. She also co-founded the All Tribes Foundation, to culturally and economically benefit Native Americans, and the Give Love Give Life organization, to raise public awareness of women's cancers. Bertrand was the former wife of...

, before her death in January 2007. The rights for the first post-adoption images of Pax were sold to People for a reported $2 million, as well as to Hello! for an undisclosed amount. Pitt's adoption of Pax was finalized in the United States on February 21, 2008.

At the Cannes Film Festival
2008 Cannes Film Festival
The 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival was held from May 14 to May 25, 2008. In addition to films selected for competition this year, major Hollywood productions such as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Kung Fu Panda had their world premieres at the festival.The British press...

 in May 2008, Jolie confirmed that she was expecting twins. She gave birth to a son, Knox Léon, and a daughter, Vivienne Marcheline, on July 12, 2008 in Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...

, France. The rights for the first images of Knox and Vivienne were jointly sold to People and Hello! for a reported $14 million—the most expensive celebrity pictures ever taken. The proceeds were donated to the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.

In the media

Starting in 2005, Pitt and Jolie's relationship became one of the most reported celebrity stories worldwide. After Jolie confirmed her first pregnancy in January 2006, the unprecedented media hype surrounding them "reached the point of insanity," as described by Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...

 in their story "The Brangelina Fever". In an attempt to avoid the media attention, Pitt and Jolie went to Namibia for the birth of their first biological child, to whom the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

 referred as "the most anticipated baby since Jesus Christ." Two years later, Jolie's second pregnancy again fueled a media frenzy. For the two weeks she spent in a seaside hospital in Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...

, France, reporters and photographers camped outside on the promenade to report on the birth of the twins.

Like their relationship, Pitt and Jolie's six children themselves have gained considerable celebrity and appear regularly in the tabloid media. In January 2008, Forbes named Shiloh the most influential celebrity child, based on her web presence, press clippings, and awareness data, and her parents' consumer-appeal rankings. Ethiopia-born Zahara ranked third, while Vietnam-born Pax came in fifth. Cambodia-born Maddox was, at six, too old to qualify. In a November 2008 repeat survey, Shiloh ranked second behind Suri Cruise, the daughter of actors Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....

 and Katie Holmes
Katie Holmes
Katherine Noelle "Katie" Holmes is an American actress who first achieved fame for her role as Joey Potter on The WB television teen drama Dawson's Creek from 1998 to 2003. Her movie roles have included the blockbuster Batman Begins along with art house films such as The Ice Storm and thrillers...

. Zahara again placed third and Pax moved up to fourth place. Twins Knox and Vivienne were too young and infrequently seen to qualify.

Name

Robert Thompson
Robert Thompson (professor)
Robert J. Thompson is an American educator and media scholar.Thompson is the Trustee Professor of Television and Popular Culture at the S.I...

, an educator and researcher in the field of popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...

, has said that the coupling of A-list
A-list
A-list is a term that alludes to major movie stars, or the most bankable in the Hollywood film industry.The A-list is part of a larger guide called The Hot List that has become an industry-standard guide in Hollywood...

 stars like Pitt and Jolie, or in years gone by Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...

 and Richard Burton
Richard Burton
Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...

, is "a paparazzo's dream come true." He further relayed that, "as silly as it sounds, this new tendency to make up single names for two people, like 'Bennifer' (Ben Affleck
Ben Affleck
Benjamin Géza Affleck-Boldt , better known as Ben Affleck, is an American actor, film director, writer, and producer. He became known with his performances in Kevin Smith's films such as Mallrats and Chasing Amy...

 and Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an American actress, singer, record producer, dancer, television personality, and fashion designer. Lopez began her career as a dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller...

) and 'TomKat' (Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....

 and Katie Holmes
Katie Holmes
Katherine Noelle "Katie" Holmes is an American actress who first achieved fame for her role as Joey Potter on The WB television teen drama Dawson's Creek from 1998 to 2003. Her movie roles have included the blockbuster Batman Begins along with art house films such as The Ice Storm and thrillers...

), is an insightful idea. 'Brangelina' has more cultural equity than their two star parts."
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