Inside Angelina Jolie's Life As A Single Mom

Angelina Jolie has been given a lot of different labels in the past — including gothic, edgy, and even mysteriously intense. Yet everything about her oozes "quintessential movie star." So, it wasn't too surprising that when she hooked up with Hollywood heavyweight Brad Pitt back in roughly 2004, our interest in their lives went from curious to obsessed. (Remember "Brangelina"?) This power couple later had six kids (three adopted, three biologically), tied the knot in 2014, and appeared to live happily together as a family of eight. That is, until September 2016, when an alleged child abuse incident on a private plane (of which Pitt was later cleared) prompted Jolie to file for divorce "for the health of the family," her lawyer told People.

Amid ongoing divorce proceedings and following a nasty custody battle, Jolie is officially single and on her own these days, living in a house of nearly all teenagers — and our curiosity about her hasn't gone away. How has the actress been dealing with the emotional fallout of this high-profile split, all while maintaining a career in the public eye? Here's everything we know about Angelina Jolie's life as a single mom.

Angelina Jolie has admitted that it's hard for her to relax sometimes, which maybe isn't too surprising, considering her intense public image. In 2015, the Maleficent star revealed her biggest struggle since turning 40 to The Guardian: "Being in the everyday. Staying still. Because ... I'm a bit on fire, inside." However, Jolie gave the complete opposite impression two years later, when Vanity Fair described her household as "messy, relaxed, and normal." While we might've thought she was simply living the sanitized lifestyle of an A-list celeb, little details suggested otherwise — like the rarely washed blanket that daughter Vivienne was said to carry around, and Jolie's total willingness to let her dog, Dusty, jump up on their white couch during the interview.

When it comes to her family life, the Wanted actress has said that a typical day usually begins by waking up to a state of chaos between her dogs and kids. "Right now, I'm going through a moment where there's just, everybody's in my room," she told BBC News with a laugh. Saying "it's wonderful," Jolie went on to add, "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."

Back in 2010, Jolie admitted that while she "sometimes" cooked for her kids, she wasn't exactly the greatest at it. "I'm not the best cook," she told People at the time. "Pax [then age 6] is a better cook than me. Pax likes to cook. But I try to when I can. Any house that we're in, we all chip in. But the kids are very sweet ... so enthusiastic anytime I cook." Later, as a single mom, the actress told Vanity Fair that she was still working on her culinary prowess — albeit with a more realistic approach: "I'm just wanting to make the proper breakfast and keep the house. That's my passion. At the request of my kids, I'm taking cooking classes."

As Jolie continues to work on her skills in the kitchen, she's also known to take her children out to breakfast. The day after Christmas in 2018, for example, she and her four youngest were spotted on a breakfast outing in Los Angeles. Whether or not the actress also has a chef on hand is unconfirmed — but it goes without saying that Jolie might save a good chunk of change once she masters the art of cooking, considering just one private chef can cost up to $200,000 per year, according to People.

Since announcing her divorce, Jolie has made an effort not to break down in front of her kids in order to give them a sense of stability. "I was very worried about my mother, growing up — a lot. I do not want my children to be worried about me," she told Vanity Fair. "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."

In addition to Jolie's efforts to be strong for everyone, her six children have also been brave in their own right, sticking by their famous mom during one of the most challenging times for their family. "They really help me so much," the actress told The New York Times in 2017. "We're really such a unit. They're the best friends I've ever had. Nobody in my life has ever stood by me more."

Exes Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have thankfully "come a long way" in their communication since their 2016 split, according to a source quoted by Entertainment Tonight in April 2019. Noting that they "rarely argue," the insider claimed the two celebs are able to "discuss their children's plans calmly" and are both "dedicated to co-parenting."

This, of course, is despite Jolie's seemingly abrupt and painful divorce filing, which was reportedly triggered by a supposed altercation between Pitt and son Maddox, then 15, on a private plane (via TMZ). While the alleged incident led to Pitt being the target of a child abuse investigation, the case, as previously mentioned, was later dropped.

Jolie has since avoided speaking harshly about Pitt in public, and has instead repeatedly confirmed their joint dedication to their family. When asked about the matter by BBC News, she simply called it "a very difficult time." She added, "We are a family. And we will always be a family. And we will get through this time and hopefully be a stronger family for it." For his part, a source close to Pitt also commented to Us Weekly in June 2019, "It's a very healthy situation and Brad is grateful that all of the animosity is in the past."

Having adopted three of her children from different countries, Jolie has seemed determined to make sure all six of her kids grow up to be worldly — and her divorce from Pitt hasn't stopped her from making that happen. The Jolie-Pitt family, for example, had been going "back and forth [to son Maddox's home country of Cambodia] for 17 years," Jolie told People in 2017. At the time, she brought all six children there again for the premiere of her movie, First They Killed My Father. That same year, they also traveled to Namibia (where Shiloh was born) to open a wildlife sanctuary in Shiloh's name for elephants and rhinos that fell victim to poaching or abuse. Later in August 2019, Jolie sent Maddox off to college at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea, where he'll study biochemistry.

It seems like the Jolie-Pitt kiddos are well on their way to becoming true global citizens. When asked where she'd like to be in five years, proud mom Jolie told BBC News in 2017, "I would like to be traveling around the world visiting my children, hoping that they're just happy and doing really interesting things, and I imagine in many different parts of the world." Ultimately, she hoped to give her children the "right sense of what they're capable of and the world as it should be seen, not through the prism of Hollywood."

Unlike her own mom, whom Angelina Jolie once said was a "full-time mother" who "didn't have much of her own career," the actress has tried her best to balance homemaking with travel and her celebrity status. In other words, the A-lister tends to stay grounded in everyday routines ... until she feels like shaking things up again, that is.

"I've been trying for nine months to be really good at just being a homemaker and picking up dog poop and cleaning dishes and reading bedtime stories," Jolie told Vanity Fair in 2017. "And I'm getting better at all three. But now I need to get my boots on and go hang, take a trip." Luckily, the Jolie-Pitt kids seem to be on board with their pick-up-and-go lifestyle, even if it's different from the norm. But as Jolie went on to quote her youngest son, Knox: "He said, 'Who wants to be normal? We're not normal. Let's never be normal.' Thank you — yes! We're not normal. Let's embrace being not normal!" Indeed.