In the 2000s, the artist was called the most desirable woman in the world, but a decade later, the opinion of those around her changed dramatically. The reason for this is Angelina Jolie’s unhealthy thinness, which was the result of stress and serious problems in her personal life.
On June 4, Angelina Jolie turns 49, and she is still considered one of the brightest stars in Hollywood. But even devoted fans do not deny that in recent years, the main topic for the tabloids has not been the artist’s creative successes, but the scandals in her family life. According to experts, Angie’s filmography has not been replenished with masterpieces for a long time, and her appearance has not changed for the better.
This is not about the natural process of aging: those around her are concerned about the star’s painful thinness, which has led to her being hospitalized more than once. The reason for her anorexia is obvious: Jolie’s divorce from Brad Pitt lasted for seven years in court. The disputes with her ex-husband brought the actress to nervous exhaustion, but fortunately, the crisis has passed: it seems that for the sake of her children, Angelina has seriously taken care of her health and has gained a little weight.
This is not the only situation that has negatively affected Angelina Jolie’s psyche. What events left an indelible mark on her fate?
Show business and drugs
Angelina Jolie Voight was born to actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand. A year after the girl’s birth, the couple separated, and Marcheline moved to New York with Angie and their son James Haven. The woman had to forget about her career and devote herself to her children. The only outlet for the single mother was going to the cinema, thanks to which the heirs were inspired by the idea of becoming artists.
Jolie was 11 when her mother moved her and her brother back to Los Angeles. In her hometown, Angie took the first step toward her cherished dream: she studied at the Lee Strasberg Film School for two years. Angie didn’t make any friends there; on the contrary, her peers constantly teased her for her ridiculous appearance. The family didn’t have enough money, and Angelina dressed in second-hand stores, choosing baggy black clothes that once again emphasized her teenage thinness. The constant feeling of depression and loneliness led to the aspiring actress cutting herself.
At 14, Angelina began working as a model at fashion shows and starring in music videos: Lenny Kravitz, the Rolling Stones, Meat Loaf. She played in five of her brother’s experimental films, and in 1993, she got a role in the action movie Cyborg 2: Glass Shadow. Critics noticed the bright actress two years later, when she appeared in the film Hackers – the film failed at the box office, but after its release on video, it gained cult status among cyberpunk fans. The artist’s next successes were George Wallace and Gia, which brought her a Golden Globe. By the way, Angie initially refused to embody the image of the famous model on the screen, noting that Gia Marie Carangi was too similar to her…
“I felt so sad for her,” Jolie said. “It’s a huge responsibility to play a real person that you identify with. To live in her world, to be sad that she never knew love or felt like she had value.”
Angelina saw similarities with Carangi in their desire for self-destruction: having entered show business, both discovered drugs. Jolie did not hide the fact that by the age of 20 she had tried all possible types of illegal substances, and she was frankly lucky not to die young and to end her addiction in time.
The actress got another biographical role in Girl, Interrupted. For her role as the rebel Lisa, she received a Golden Globe and an Oscar. Critics were delighted with Jolie’s convincing performance in dramas, but she alternated worthy projects with box office action films: Gone in 60 Seconds, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. For the second part of the film adaptation of the computer game, Angelina was given a fee of 12 million dollars, which instantly elevated her to the rank of the highest paid stars in the world.
Although experts were negative about the talented actress’s participation in the Lara Croft franchise, the filming turned out to be very important for Jolie herself. Firstly, she was so shocked by the living conditions in Cambodia that she began participating in humanitarian missions. And secondly, the actress got the opportunity to work on the same project with Jon Voight. For years, Angelina blamed her father for her divorce from her mother and hoped to finally make peace with him. However, the attempt turned into a complete failure: the relatives quarreled, and Voight said in an interview that his daughter had serious mental problems. After that, Angie forever renounced her father’s surname.
“Alexander”, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”, “Wanted” – Jolie appeared more and more often in epic films. A real gift for fans was her participation in the drama “Changeling”, based on the real story of a mother whose son was kidnapped. Angelina was also partial to the fantasy genre: “Maleficent” with her in the leading role was warmly received by the audience.
Later, the star became interested in directing and presented to the public the documentary film “A Place in Time,” the drama “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” and the war film “Unbroken.”
In 2019, rumors spread about Angelina’s end of acting career, which never came to fruition: now among her upcoming works are the third part of “Maleficent” and a biopic about the famous opera diva “Maria”. Assumptions about leaving the cinema are primarily related to the concerns of those around her about the mental and physical health of the star.
Beloved men and children
Angelina Jolie has been repeatedly recognized as the sexiest woman in the world, needless to say that she had no end of admirers? Most often, the actress chose boyfriends from among her colleagues. Thus, her first husband was her partner in “Hackers” Jonny Lee Miller. However, the marriage did not last long: a year later the couple separated, and officially dissolved the union in 1999. According to Jolie, the passion quickly evaporated, so the decision to get married turned out to be a big mistake.
On the set of the film “Playing God”, the actress started a new romance – with Timothy Hutton, but again love passed a year later, leaving Jolie with a tattoo with the first letter of the colleague’s surname as a keepsake. Much more serious was Angelina’s relationship with Billy Bob Thornton, which resulted in a three-year marriage. The spouses were considered the perfect couple, so why did they break up?
The press forgot about Billy Bob when it became known about Angie’s new scandalous affair – with Brad Pitt. Apparently, passion flared up between the Hollywood stars on the set of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” The lovers stubbornly denied this fact, because at that time Pitt was married to Jennifer Aniston. People around them called Jolie a treacherous homewrecker, despite the fact that Brad and Jennifer tried to present their divorce as a mutual decision of the parties.
Aniston went to Malibu, where she locked herself in a house with her dog and refused to read newspapers: just to avoid seeing news about Pitt’s new passion. Just then, the long-term filming of Friends ended, which further aggravated the actress’s depression. To cope with Brad’s betrayal, she visited a psychologist for months and later managed to forgive her unfaithful husband.
Soon, those around them came to terms with the state of affairs and changed their anger to mercy: Jolie stopped being judged, and the term “Brangelina” even appeared on the Internet – this is how the most beautiful couple in Hollywood was dubbed. They were in no hurry to get married, but they became a real family: in 2002, Angie adopted a boy from Cambodia, Maddox, and Pitt filed documents for joint custody of him. Then the actors adopted a girl from Ethiopia, Zahara, and in 2006, their first biological child, Shiloh, was born. The baby instantly turned into a star: the paparazzi pursued her from the first days of her life, photos of the blonde beauty flooded the Internet.
A year after Shiloh’s birth, the actors adopted a Vietnamese boy, Pax Thien, and on July 12, 2008, Angelina gave birth to twins, Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline. The choice of the girl’s name spoke volumes: in 2007, Jolie’s mother, Marcheline Bertrand, died of cancer. Unfortunately, this sad event was far from the last in Jolie’s series of trials.
Scandalous divorce
In 2012, Angelina and Brad announced their engagement, and in August 2014, their long-awaited wedding took place in France. Against the backdrop of happy news, there were also alarming ones: concerned about her hereditary predisposition to cancer, Jolie had her breasts and ovaries removed. Fans were perplexed: was it worth making such sacrifices for a disease that had not manifested itself?
Another hot topic for discussion was the methods of upbringing: Angie advocated complete freedom of action for the heirs, which was synonymous with the absence of discipline and daily routine. The children could watch movies and enjoy ice cream all night long, individual education did not contribute to their socialization, and trips with their mother to Third World countries were considered by many to be traumatic for the immature child psyche. The icing on the cake was the scandalous statement of 10-year-old Shiloh that she now only wears men’s clothing. Jolie supported the young rebel, which was not approved by all fans.
The problems piled up like a snowball: in 2015, insiders started talking about the inevitable separation of the spouses due to constant scandals, the press called Angelina a tyrant and hysterical. At the same time, the tabloids were full of headlines about the actress’s serious illness: she suddenly lost weight to 37 kilograms, and the causes of anorexia were associated with nervous exhaustion.
But what was really going on between Jolie and Pitt? The once adoring spouses went to war over the division of custody of their children. At some point, in order to win the dispute, the actress announced her intention to publish diaries that compromised her chosen one as an alcoholic and an aggressor. Brad really suffered from addiction, and once, while drunk, he raised his hand against Angie and fought with Maddox, but then he completed a course of rehabilitation and quit drinking. According to the suspicions of family friends, it was the conflict with their son that could have become the main reason for the separation of the star couple.
However, Angelina was not an ideal wife either: her jealousy, hysterics, humanitarian missions that became more important than communication with her husband – all this destroyed the relationship. Stress had a serious impact on the actress’s health: she hardly ate, smoked a lot, and eventually even ended up in a psychiatric clinic due to anorexia and bulimia.
In 2023, the actors finally concluded their legal proceedings. It seems that having put an end to her relationship with Pitt, Jolie breathed a sigh of relief: fans noticed that she began to appear in public more often and had transformed her appearance.
“There have been times in my life in the last couple of years when I didn’t feel free, didn’t feel safe. I felt small, cornered. It took me a long time to find myself again,” the star admitted.
The heirs stayed with Angelina, and Brad received the right to see them, but later Shiloh wanted to move in with her father, which, according to rumors, greatly upset the actress. But Pax Jolie-Pitt stood up for his mother, stating that his father turned the lives of his loved ones into hell with a drunken brawl in 2016.
It seemed like months and years were passing, but the past did not give the ex-spouses any peace. They say that Angelina is unhappy with her ex-husband’s affair with Ines De Ramon, because she also got along with the couple’s children. As for Angie, in mid-May she was caught meeting with August Diehl, although most likely it was not a date, because the artists have been friends for a long time.
