Angelina Jolie says she’s finally ready to open herself up to love again.
During a new interview with Yahoo Entertainment, the actress revealed that she hasn’t dated anyone since her split from Brad Pitt. Jolie filed for divorce in 2016 after nearly 12 years together, although the divorce wasn’t officially finalized until 2024.
“I haven’t dated or been with anyone since I divorced a decade ago, right?” she told the outlet. “So I kind of get in my head that that aspect of me is not centered in my life if I’m focusing on my children and my family.”
Her upcoming film, Couture, however, has prompted her to think differently about romance. In the drama, Jolie plays an American film director who, after receiving a breast cancer diagnosis, unexpectedly finds love while working on a project in Europe.
“It took me a second to say, ‘Look, she can also love her daughter and be dedicated to her daughter and also need this as a woman and receive this as a woman.’ And that in fact, it might be very healing for her,” Jolie said while discussing her character.
The role also resonates with Jolie on a personal level. In 2013, she underwent a preventive double mastectomy after learning she carried the BRCA1 gene, which significantly increased her risk of developing breast cancer. Her mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, died from the disease in 2007 at the age of 56.
“Life has broken me a little,” Jolie admitted. “I have to live again. Be free again.”
She added that her daughters—Zahara, Shiloh, and Vivienne—have encouraged her to embrace life beyond motherhood.
“They speak to me as young women, and I see what I want for them,” the 51-year-old said. “I see what I don’t want them to lose and what I want them to hold on to. And in a way, this is reminding me of what I might have lost myself.”
“I think they kind of want me now to not just be ‘Mom,’ ” she continued. “There’s a different room for me to be that woman again, that’s not just a mom.”
In addition to her three daughters, Jolie and Pitt also share three sons—Maddox, Pax, and Knox. Although their divorce has been finalized, the former couple remains locked in an ongoing legal dispute over Château Miraval, the French winery they once owned together.
