Once upon a time, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie seemed like the ultimate power couple. Sure, it was sad watching Pitt divorce Friends star Jennifer Aniston for someone new. But after watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith (the film where they met), nobody could deny that Pitt and Jolie had crazy chemistry. And who doesn’t enjoy watching insanely hot people falling in love?
Unfortunately, this didn’t end up being a happily ever after for either of them. After meeting in 2004, dating, and eventually getting married, these two kids called it quits in 2016. Wildly enough, the divorce didn’t finalize until late last year. And while the couple has remained mostly quiet about how things went down, Pitt recently opened up about how he feels now that the divorce is behind him.
How does Pitt feel? Why did the divorce take so long, and who is he seeing now? Keep reading to find out!
A divorce nearly a decade in the making
The timeline of the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie romance is pretty wild. As mentioned above, the two of them met in 2004 while filming Mr. and Mrs. Smith. They played the title characters and had a killer chemistry on the set. However, there was just one problem: Pitt was married to Jennifer Aniston at the time.
Things moved quickly after that. Pitt and Aniston divorced in early 2005, leaving Pitt and Jolie to go public about their relationship in July of that year. They stay together for many years, having multiple children before getting married. The couple tied the knot in August 2014, but almost exactly two years later, Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt.
Incredibly, the divorce procedures lasted until late 2024. For casual fans of both actors, this left the obvious question of why the divorce took so long to finalize.
Why did the divorce take so long?
Why did it take so long for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie to finalize their divorce? The answer comes down to the two things this couple has in abundance: money and children. In a happy marriage, there’s nothing wrong with having plenty of kids and money to spare. When a couple in this situation gets divorced, though, it can make everything take much longer.
For example, each of the actors in question is a world-famous millionaire. That meant their divorce entailed financial disputes that most couples (who are splitting, at most, a house and its contents) have to face. Additionally, there have been some nasty custody battles over the years, with Jolie winning sole custody of the kids at first before Pitt successfully fought for joint custody in 2021.
As of December 2024, this long-running divorce has been finalized. More recently, Pit has opened up about how the divorce makes him feel. And what he says may very well shock you!
Pitt’s life is peaceful after the divorce
Over the years, Brad Pitt has said surprisingly little about his long-running divorce from Angelina Jolie. That might have been a deliberate choice to avoid making headlines or losing custody. Now that the divorce is in his rearview mirror, though, Pitt doesn’t have a problem opening up about how he feels.
For example, in an interview with GQ, Pitt was asked if he felt relieved about the divorce finally being over. The actor replied, “No, I don’t think it was that major of a thing. Just something coming to fruition. Legally.”
Still, he seems quite happy. For example, he responded to a question about filmmaking being an escape by emphasizing how content he currently is. “My life is fairly contained,” he said. “It feels pretty warm and secure with my friends, with my loves, with my fam, with my knowledge of who I am, that, you know, it’s like this fly buzzing around a little bit.”
Moving on with a new girlfriend
It infamously took Brad Pitt almost no time to move on from his marriage to Jennifer Aniston. Those two divorced and, months later, Pitt went public about a relationship with Jolie. This caused plenty of negative press at the time, with some of Jolie’s haters claiming that she is a homewrecker who destroyed an otherwise happy marriage.
Similarly, it didn’t take Pitt too long to find someone new amid the divorce from Jolie finalizing. He was dating Ines de Ramon, but they didn’t make any public appearances until attending the 2024 British Grand Prix together. This was as much research for Pitt’s upcoming F1 film as it was a date.
Pitt seemed pretty nonchalant about their first public appearance, and this is likely because he is quite accustomed to the spotlight. Or as he told GQ, “My personal life is always in the news. It’s been in the news for 30 years…Or some version of my personal life, let’s put it that way.” Now, at least, Pitt gets to enjoy a version of his life where his seemingly endless divorce is finally over!