After years of keeping matters related to his divorce from Angelina Jolie mostly confined to the courtroom, Brad Pitt is speaking out about the drawn-out legal matter.
On May 28, GQ published a feature story on Pitt’s latest film, “F1,” and asked him about his December divorce settlement with Jolie following an eight-year battle in court. And Pitt had a surprisingly toned-down response to the question about whether the finalized matter brought any “relief.”
“No, I don’t think it was that major of a thing,” Pitt told the magazine. “Just something coming to fruition. Legally.”
He appeared to have a more impassioned answer to an ensuing question about whether his first public outing with partner Ines de Ramon at the 2024 British Grand Prix in July was a deliberate decision.
“No, dude, it’s not that calculated,” Pitt told GQ. “If you’re living — oh my God, how exhausting would that be? If you’re living with making those kinds of calculations? No, life just evolves. Relationships evolve.”
On living in the limelight, Pitt said, “It’s been an annoyance I’ve had to always deal with in different degrees, large and small, as I do the things I really want to do. … My life is fairly contained. It feels pretty warm and secure with my friends, with my loves, with my fam, with my knowledge of who I am.”
The GQ cover story also spoke with director Joseph Kosinski and co-stars Damson Idris and Lewis Hamilton (also a producer) about the making of what the magazine called “the greatest racing movie of all time,” which releases June 27.
Filming the action movie — which included racing in front of real live F1 crowds around the world — reinforced the sense that he could still find excitement in the moviemaking business: “It just reinvigorated the whole thing again for me,” Pitt said.
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Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt in September 2016, more than a decade after they met on the set of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” Upon its finalization, Jolie’s lawyer, James Simon, told USA TODAY in a statement that “Frankly, Angelina is exhausted, but she is relieved this one part is over.”
“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. This is just one part of a long ongoing process that started eight years ago,” the Dec. 31 statement read.
Pitt, 61, and Jolie, 49, share six children: Maddox, 23; Pax, 21; Zahara, 20; Shiloh, 19; and 18-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox.
In May 2024, on her 18th birthday, Shiloh dropped her hyphenated last name and petitioned for a legal name change to Shiloh Nouvel Jolie, which was approved nearly three months later. People also reported that month that Vivienne dropped “Pitt” from her name in the Playbill credit for the buzzy Broadway musical “The Outsiders,” which her mom produced.
Aside from the divorce, Pitt and Angelina Jolie had also previously been engaged in an ongoing legal battle over the finances of their winery, Château Miraval, as well as custody over their children.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Brad Pitt downplays Angelina Jolie divorce settlement: Not ‘major’
