Angelina Jolie is many things: an Academy Award-winning actress, a celebrated director, and a passionate activist. She won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 2000 for her role in Girl, Interrupted, and has since directed films such as Unbroken, First They Killed My Father, and In the Land of Blood and Honey. As an activist, she has worked extensively with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other humanitarian causes. But perhaps her most cherished role is that of mother. Angelina and her ex-husband Brad Pitt share six children—Maddox, Zahara, Pax, Shiloh, and twins Vivienne and Knox.
Though Jolie and Pitt’s 2016 split led to a contentious divorce and custody battle, the former couple has worked hard to co-parent their six children, whom Jolie once described as having “saved” her. “I was 26 when I became a mother,” she told Vogue in September 2023. “My entire life changed. Having children saved me — and taught me to be in this world differently. I think, recently, I would’ve gone under in a much darker way had I not wanted to live for them.”
Get to know her children better below!
Maddox Jolie-Pitt, 23
Maddox (born August 5, 2001) is Angelina’s oldest child. Angelina adopted Maddox from a Cambodian orphanage in 2002 when he was seven months old. The actress was still married to Billy Bob Thornton at the time, but she adopted Maddox on her own. In 2019, the young adult began attending Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. Angelina dropped her son off at the school, and the emotional ordeal left her a crying mess.
In 2020, he returned home to study remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Angelina told a South Korean outlet in April 2020 that Maddox will return to campus once the pandemic gets better. “He’ll be back as soon as things settle,” she said. “He’s using the time to focus on his Korean and Russian studies. We are all so happy, as a family, that we will have the opportunity to get to know South Korea even better through Maddox, and with him, during his studies.”
The eldest Jolie-Pitt has worked in Hollywood. He served as a producer on his mother’s First They Killed My Father, a biographical war film about the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror, and an assistant on By the Sea, the 2015 romance drama that starred Angelina and Brad.
In 2022, Maddox reportedly celebrated his 21st birthday with his mother and siblings. Brad was absent from the party due to work commitments. In 2020, a source told HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY that Brad and Maddox’s strained relationship had “improved” somewhat. However, since Maddox turned 18, he was under no legal obligation to spend time with his father.
Zahara Jolie Pitt, 19
Zahara (born January 5, 2005) is one of Angelina’s adopted children. She adopted her daughter from Ethiopia in 2005 at six months old. Zahara has helped inspire her famous parents’ charity work. The Jolie-Pitt Foundation created the Zahara Program and the Zahara Children’s Center, launched to treat drug-resistant tuberculosis and provide further research on the disease in Ethiopia. The foundation similarly created the Maddox Chivan Children’s Centre in their son’s name to help families affected by HIV/AIDS in Phnom Penh. Like her brother, Zahara has forayed into Hollywood, having starred alongside her mom in Kung Fu Panda 3 as the voice of Meng Meng.
During a TIME 100 interview with activist Vanessa Nakate in July 2020 amid discussions of Black Lives Matter, Angelina revealed she had learned a lot from Zahara.
“My daughter is from Ethiopia, one of my children,” she said. “And I have learned so much from her. She is my family, but she is an extraordinary African woman, and her connection to her country, her continent, is very — it’s her own, and it’s something I only stand back in awe of.”
In August 2022, Angelina announced that Zahara would attend Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. Spelman College is an HBCU — a “historically black college or university, which has been a way for higher education to offer “all students, regardless of race, an opportunity to develop their skills and talents,” per the U.S. Department of Education. When dropping off her child at college, Angelina got emotional.
“I’m gonna start crying! I have not started crying yet,” she said at the time, adding that she’s holding it together.
Brad raved about his eldest daughter during an interview at one of his Bullet Train premieres. “She’s so smart. She’s going to flourish even more at college,” he said, per Vanity Fair. “It’s an exciting and beautiful time to find her own way and pursue her interests. I’m so proud.”
In February 2023, Angelina and Zahara traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with lawmakers and advocate for the Justice for All Reauthorization Act of 2022. The legislation aims to protect crime victims by establishing a right to evidence and agency reports, improving forensic science, addressing the rape kit backlog, and tackling racial disparities in wrongful convictions.
Later that year, Zahara joined a college sorority during her undergraduate education at Spelman College.
Pax Jolie-Pitt, 20
Angelina adopted Pax (born November 29, 2003) from Vietnam in 2007 when he was three years old. In an interview with Vogue India, the actress reflected on adopting her son from Vietnam after adopting Maddox from Cambodia, two places that have been at war.
When asked if it were a conscious decision, Angelina said, “I did think about that. I did originally think not to adopt from Vietnam because Mad was Cambodian, and the two countries have a complex history,” she said. “Then I was reading a book on human rights and found myself staring at an image of a Vietnamese fighter held captive by Americans. I thought of my own country and our involvement in Southeast Asia. I thought of focusing on a future where we were all family.”
“I am very blessed to have been allowed to be their mom,” Angelina continued. “I am grateful every day.” Like his siblings, Pax has worked in a few of his mom’s films, starring in Kung Fu Panda 3 as Yoo and working in camera and electrical in First They Killed My Father.
In August 2022, Pax, who graduated from high school in 2021, worked on Without Blood alongside his brother Maddox. Angelina, who directed the film, shared of her sons, “We work well together. When a film crew is at its best, it feels like a big family, so it felt natural.”
In 2024, Pax was hospitalized following an e-bike accident in Los Angeles. A source told PEOPLE that after Pax was discharged from the ICU, “He suffered complex trauma and now begins the long road of recovery and physical therapy.”
Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, 18
Shiloh is Angelina and Brad’s biological firstborn child. The teen was born in Swakopmund, Namibia, on May 27, 2006, and has dual citizenship in the African country and the United States.
In an interview with Vanity Fair in June 2010, Angelina opened up about her daughter’s personality. “Shiloh’s hysterically funny, one of the goofiest, most playful people you’ll ever meet,” she said, adding that she was most like Shiloh as a kid. “Goofy and verbal, the early signs of a performer, I used to get dressed up in costumes and jump around. But at some point, I got closed off, darker. I don’t remember anything happening. I think you just get hit with the realities of certain things in life, think too much, start to realize the world isn’t as you wished it would be, so you deepen.”
Shiloh has an interest in the arts and loves her dance class. In 2022, her dance moves with the Millennium Dance Complex went viral thanks to a few social media videos. In one video, Shiloh danced along to Doja Cat’s “Vegas,” showing off grace and coordination that left her father stunned.
“It brings a tear to the eye,” Brad said in a 2022 interview. “I love them to find their own way, find things they’re interested in, find their own voice and flourish. … I don’t know where she got it from. I’m Mr. Two-Left-Feet here.”
Like her siblings, Shiloh has appeared in her mother’s films, including Kung Fu Panda 3 as the voice of Shuai Shuai.
When Shiloh turned 18, she legally changed her last name from Jolie-Pitt to Jolie. According to a new report from E! News, it was revealed that Shiloh used her own money and hired an attorney to file the petition independently.
Vivienne Jolie-Pitt, 16
Vivienne (born July 12, 2008) is Angelina and Brad’s youngest daughter and twin of son Knox. Like her siblings, she has starred opposite her mom in her films, including Maleficent as a young Princess Aurora. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly in 2014, Angelina explained that they cast her daughter in the role because she was the only child who was not afraid of her in her costume.
“We think it’s fun for our kids to have cameos and join us on set, but not to be actors. That’s not our goal for Brad and I at all,” she explained. “But the other 3- and 4-year-old [performers] wouldn’t come near me. It had to be a child [who] liked me and wasn’t afraid of my horns and my eyes and my claws. So it had to be Viv.”
Speaking with BBC Radio 4 in 2016, Angelina also revealed that Viv had a strong interest in learning Arabic. The actress said that all six of her children were learning new languages. “I asked them what languages they wanted to learn, and [Shiloh] ‘s learning Khmer, which is the Cambodian language, Pax is focusing on Vietnamese, Mad has taken to German and Russian, [Zahara] ‘s speaking French,” she said. “Vivienne really wanted to learn Arabic and Knox is learning sign language.”
In August 2023, Angelina announced that she would be adapting S.E. Hinton’s novel and Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film The Outsiders for Broadway. Vivienne joined the project as her mother’s volunteer assistant. In a statement, Angelina said of her daughter: “Viv reminds me of my mother in that she isn’t focused on being the center of attention but rather on supporting other creatives. She’s very thoughtful and serious about theatre and works hard to understand how best to contribute.”
Speaking to PEOPLE in April 2024, Angelina revealed that it was Vivienne who inspired her involvement in The Outsiders, calling her “a young artist who channels her energy into supporting others.” In the Playbill for The Outsiders, Vivienne was listed simply as “Vivienne Jolie,” suggesting she may have dropped her father’s last name, though it remains unconfirmed whether this reflects a legal name change.
Knox Jolie-Pitt, 16
Knox is Angelina and Brad’s youngest child and the twin brother of Vivienne. The siblings were born in Nice, France, on July 12, 2008. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Angelina shared a glimpse into their personalities: “Knox and Viv are classic boy and girl,” she said. “She’s really female. And he’s really a little dude.”
Knox and Vivienne have also shown a bit of entrepreneurial spirit. In 2019, they were spotted selling organic dog treats with their famous mom at a park in Los Angeles, raising funds for Hope For Paws, an organization that rescues homeless dogs.
Though Knox has largely grown up out of the spotlight, he voiced the character of Ku Ku in Kung Fu Panda 3. He also made a rare appearance with his mom at the 2024 Governors Awards at the Dolby Theatre.
