Angelina Jolie is slowly returning to the public eye following her highly publicized split from Brad Pitt. The Maleficent actress opened up about their impending divorce during an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday, February 21.
“We are focusing on the health of our family. So we will be stronger when we come out of this because that’s what we’re determined to do as a family,” Jolie, 41, said.
When asked if Pitt, 53, is still a part of the family, she replied: “Of course. Of course, we will always be a family. Always.”
Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt in September after two years of marriage, following an incident aboard a flight. At the time, Pitt was accused of getting into an altercation with their 15-year-old son, Maddox, but the FBI found no evidence that the situation ever occurred. Pitt continues to have monitored visits with Maddox and the estranged couple’s other children — Pax, 13, Zahara, 12, Shiloh, 10, and twins Vivienne and Knox, 8 — while Jolie has physical custody.
“My whole family, we’ve all being through a difficult time. My focus is my children, our children, and my focus is finding this way through. We are and forever will be a family. I am coping with finding a way through to make sure that this somehow makes us stronger and closer,” Jolie told BBC reporter Yalda Hakim on Sunday.
For now, Jolie is concentrating solely on her kids in the aftermath. “Usually, I just wake up trying to figure out who’s going to get the dog out, who’s going to start the pancakes and did anybody brush their teeth,” she added.
Jolie brought her six children to her First They Killed My Father premiere in Cambodia on Saturday. (Jolie adopted Maddox from the country in March 2002 when he was 7 months old.) They later learned how to cook spiders, crickets and scorpions in a video, which was published by BBC. (Jolie directed the film, which is based on the 2000 book by Loung Ung, a survivor of the Pol Pot regime.)
“This country means a great deal to me, this country has been through so much. This war affected every single individual here, and I wanted to understand myself,” Jolie said of her new movie to ABC on Tuesday. “I don’t know much of my [Maddox’s] birth parents, but I believe they would have gone through this war. I wanted to understand his culture in a deeper way, and bring this story to this country in their language.”
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