Shiloh Jolie Is the Latest of Brad and Angelina's Kids to Drop 'Pitt' From Name (UPDATE)
Per TMZ, Shiloh filed to drop the surname on her 18th birthday.
UPDATED 7/22, 8:37 p.m. ET: Shiloh Jolie’s lawyer wants to set the record straight on why her legal name change was publicized in the press.
The 18-year-old daughter of Angelina Jolie, 49, and Brad Pitt, 60, filed a legal petition to no longer use her father’s last name. According to the Los Angeles Times, Shiloh, whose legal name is Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, wants to shorten her name to Shiloh Nouvel Jolie.
Despite reports that she bought an ad in the Los Angeles Times seemingly as a perceived statement made against her estranged father, Shiloh’s attorney Peter Levine says that it was actually nothing more than a legal notice required by law.
“Shiloh Jolie did not take out an ‘ad’ announcing any name change, and any press reporting that is inaccurate," said Levine in a statement made to Entertainment Weekly. “As Shiloh’s attorney, I am required to publish a legal notice because the law in California requires that of anyone who wants to change their name. That legal notice was published in the Los Angeles Times, as is required.”
“The media should be more careful in their reporting, especially when covering a young adult who has made an independent and significant decision following painful events, and is merely following legal process,” he added.
A hearing for Shiloh’s name change is scheduled for next Monday.
See original story below.
Shiloh Pitt-Jolie reportedly wants to make a big change amid her parents’ years-long legal battle.
According to TMZ, the 18-year-old daughter of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie has legally filed to abbreviate her name to Shiloh Jolie, making her the fourth sibling to make news by setting the Pitt surname to the side. The outlet reports the paperwork was submitted on May 27, the exact day Shiloh became a legal adult.
She follows her older brother Maddox, who started ditching the “Pitt” name in 2021 as he testified in Brad and Angelina’s custody dispute.
“[Maddox] doesn’t use Pitt as his last name on documents that aren’t legal and instead uses Jolie,” a source told Us Weekly three years ago. “Maddox wants to legally change his last name to Jolie, which Angelina has said she doesn’t support.”
Brad and Angelina’s other daughter Zahara also distanced herself from her dad in 2023, when she introduced herself as “Zahara Marley Jolie” during her induction ceremony to Alpha Kappa Alpha.
The ex-couple’s youngest daughter, Vivienne, seemingly pulled a similar move earlier this month, when she was credited as “Vivienne Jolie” on the playbill for The Outsiders—a Broadway musical she helped produce alongside her mom. It’s unclear, however, if Maddox, Zahara, and Vivienne have taken legal steps to change their names.
Brad and Angelina—who also share two other sons, Pax and Knox—said “I do” in 2014 and split about two years later. Although they were declared legally separated in 2019, the ex-couple continues to battle it out in court over lucrative assets, including their Château Miraval property and winemaking businesses.
The legal dispute has revealed more details on the highly publicized split, including allegations that Brad had physically abused Angelina and their kids during a 2016 flight. “While Pitt’s history of physical abuse of Jolie started well before the family’s September 2016 plane trip from France to Los Angeles, this flight marked the first time he turned his physical abuse on the children as well,” Angelina’s attorneys wrote in a complaint. “Jolie then immediately left him.”
Angelina’s legal team claimed Brad had choked one of their kids and hit another one in the face before he grabbed Angelina “by the head and shook her.” Brad denied the specific allegations and was never charged.
In 2021, a source close to Pitt said that the actor had “taken responsibility for his actions and owned up to his past issues,” but insisted that Angelina has failed to do the same.
“Brad is heartbroken that Angelina has gone that route,” the insider claimed about Jolie's abuse allegations. “There’s a lot of emotion left after their marriage… He’s stopped drinking and smoking, but she has never admitted any failing whatsoever. The marriage was very passionate and toxic at times and—like all couples—they had fights, but also shared many good times together.”
Angelina Jolie addressed the tumultuous relationship in a 2023 interview with Vogue Australia, saying she and her kids “had a lot of healing to do” following her and Brad’s split.
“I feel a bit down these days,” she admitted. “I don’t feel like I’ve been myself for a decade, in a way, which I don’t want to get into. We had a lot of healing to do. We’re still finding our footing…I think, recently, I would’ve gone under in a much darker way had I not wanted to live for them. They’re better than me, because you want your children to be. Of course I’m the mother, and hopefully that safe place for them and that stability. But I’m also the one that they laugh at—and I see them taking over so many different aspects of our family.”
