Angelina Jolie Finally Opens Up about Split with Brad

Perhaps from the moment that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston called it quits in 2005, the world was waiting to see if Brad’s relationship with Angelina Jolie would suffer the same fate. The two Hollywood megastars got together on the film Mr. and Mrs. Smith, notoriously while Brad and Jen were still together. Over the years, they became the parents of six children, and ultimately tied the knot in August of 2014. But just two years later, Angie filed for divorce. Since that time, the couple has been pretty quiet about what went down. All the public knew for quite some time was that Jolie was requesting sole custody of the couple’s children — Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Vivienne, and Knox.

But in a new article for Vanity Fair, Jolie has broken her silence about the split. She is promoting her film, First They Killed My Father, which is about the Cambodian genocide.

Here is what she revealed for the cover story:

…“things got bad,” says Jolie. “I didn’t want to use that word. . . . Things became ‘difficult.’” There has been Hollywood talk that their lifestyle had taken its toll on Pitt, and that he was craving a more stable, normal life for the whole family. When I bring this question up to her, it’s the one moment when Jolie becomes a bit defensive. “[Our lifestyle] was not in any way a negative,” she says quickly, adamantly. “That was not the problem. That is and will remain one of the wonderful opportunities we are able to give our children . . . They’re six very strong-minded, thoughtful, worldly individuals. I’m very proud of them.”

Brave when?

“In times they needed to be.” Other statements are similarly cryptic. “We’re all just healing from the events that led to the filing . . . They’re not healing from divorce. They’re healing from some . . . from life, from things in life.”

While Jolie’s responses seem a bit cryptic, it is probably the most anyone will learn from her when it comes to the divorce. She wants to protect her children, and, as she says, she does not “want [her] children to be worried about [her].”

She continues:

I think it’s very important to cry in the shower and not in front of them. They need to know that everything’s going to be all right even when you’re not sure it is.