Angelina Jolie surprises with love confession: No dates since the divorce from Brad Pitt

The divorce Jolie is referring to is that from Brad Pitt. Hollywood's dream couple, known in the media as "Brangelina," had separated in September 2016. The couple has been locked in an ongoing legal dispute ever since. Jolie filed for divorce the same year. A decade later, the mother is now looking back on a long phase of withdrawal.

It was precisely a film project that got Jolie thinking. Her new film "Couture" premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September of last year and is currently being promoted by Jolie as part of a promotional tour. Directed by Alice Winocour, who also wrote the screenplay. In the highly acclaimed ensemble drama, Jolie plays Maxine Walker, an American filmmaker whose life is turned upside down during Paris Fashion Week by a breast cancer diagnosis — and who also finds a new love.

The film as a mirror

The role opened her eyes with regard to love and needs, Jolie revealed. "Es hat einen Moment gedauert, bis ich mir sagen konnte: ‚Nun, sie kann ihre Tochter lieben und sich ihr widmen, aber sie braucht das auch als Frau und darf das als Frau auch empfangen'", the actress explained. Out of this experience, she formulates a desire that goes beyond the events of the film.

"Ich denke, ich muss wieder leben. Wieder frei sein", Jolie said in the interview. Looking back, she judged: "In gewisser Weise hat mich das Leben vielleicht ein bisschen gebrochen." The actress knows the fate of cancer patients from bitter experience in her own family: Her mother Marcheline Bertrand died of cancer in 2007, and her grandmother and aunt also succumbed to the disease.

The subject of her new film therefore touches a highly sensitive nerve for Jolie. In 2013, she publicly revealed that, after learning of her significantly increased genetic risk, she had undergone a preventive double mastectomy and removal of her ovaries. Then as now, Jolie is considered one of the most prominent voices advocating for education and preventive care.

Cancer as a biographical backdrop

In "Couture," however, it is not only about the medical dimension, but equally about female identity, vulnerability, and the question of whether, as a mother, one may still claim a love life of one's own. "Die Dinge ändern sich, aber auf eine Weise, die ich nicht erwartet habe", Jolie said about getting older. It doesn't feel as though she is 51 and starting to think about age.

The fact that Jolie is speaking so openly precisely during this promotional tour is remarkable. In the past, she had usually avoided interviews about her private life or kept them brief. Now she is breaking with that line — albeit cautiously and always with an eye on her children.

A central role in her reflections is played by her daughters Zahara, Shiloh, and Vivienne, whom Jolie describes as a driving force behind her personal growth. "Ich glaube, in gewisser Weise bringen sie mich wieder zu meinem alten Ich zurück", Jolie said. The daughters speak with her "wie junge Frauen," and Jolie sees in that what she wants to be for them — and what she does not.

The daughters as a driving force

"Ich sehe, was ich nicht möchte, dass sie verlieren, und was ich möchte, dass sie behalten", Jolie explained. The girls want "dass ich nicht nur ‚Mama' bin." There is another space for her "wieder diese Frau zu sein, die nicht nur eine Mama ist." In doing so, the actress visibly ties into the experience of her film role, in which a woman seeks a balance between maternal love and her own desire.

While Jolie pushes open the door to a new chapter for herself, the legal dispute with Pitt remains a constant topic. The separation in September 2016 is considered the official end of the "Brangelina" era, a difficult period that left visible marks. But instead of continuing to look back only on the failure of the relationship, Jolie is now visibly committing to a fresh start.

That it was precisely the work on a film about cancer, fashion, and female identity that became the trigger carries its own symbolic power. "Couture" negotiates themes that concern Jolie both as the daughter of women affected by cancer and as a woman in the public eye. The promotional tour thus inadvertently becomes a reckoning with her own biography.

Outlook

In the coming weeks, Jolie is expected to continue promoting "Couture," while at the same time her children, including the youngest twins Knox and Vivienne, will celebrate their 18th birthday in 2026. The children's entry into adulthood coincides with Jolie's desire "to live again" — as a woman, as an artist, and last but not least as a human being beyond the role the public has assigned her for years.

Her words mark less a farewell to the family than an expansion of her own self-understanding. "Ich konzentriere mich auf meine Kinder und meine Familie", Jolie had said, but this focus, as she now adds, does not rule out "dass dieser Aspekt meines Lebens wieder eine zentralere Rolle spielt." The balance between motherhood and a love life of her own thus remains the central theme that Jolie negotiates on screen with "Couture" — and which she now wants to readjust in her own life as well.