Inside Shiloh's Decision to Remove Brad Pitt's Last Name

Corinne Heller

June 2, 2024 at 10:11 PM·3 min read

Originally appeared on E! Online

Angelina Jolie and ex Brad Pitt's daughter Shiloh took matters into her own hands when she filed to change her last name.

On May 27, her 18th birthday, the fourth-eldest of the former couple's six children submitted a petition at a Los Angeles Court to remove the hyphenated "Pitt" part of her surname Jolie-Pitt to be known as Shiloh Nouvel Jolie. A source close to the matter told E! News June 2 that Shiloh had hired her own lawyer to handle the case and paid for it on her own.

She is not the first of the actors' six children to omit her dad's last name. When her sister Zahara, 19, joined a sorority at Spelman College last November, she introduced herself as Zahara Marley Jolie during the initiation ceremony.

In addition, multiple outlets reported last month that the name of Angelina and Brad's youngest daughter Vivienne is credited as "Vivienne Jolie" in the playbill for the new Broadway musical The Outsiders, which the 15-year-old helped produce with her mom.

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Angelina—who also shares with Brad sons Maddox, 22, Pax, 20, and Vivienne's twin Knox—had herself added Pitt to her last name, without the hyphen, after their 2014 marriage. In 2019, more than two years after she filed for divorce from the Fight Club actor, she reverted back to her surname of Jolie when judge signed off a bifurcated judgment that declared the two legally single.

The two went on to continue their custody battle over their minor children and are also involved in a separate dispute over their French winery Château Miraval.

In an April 4 court filing submitted by Angelina in connection with the latter case, she alleged Brad was physically abusive to her before a September 2016 incident during a family private plane ride, in which she accused him of turning "his physical abuse on the children as well" for the first time.

E! New reached out to reps for both actors about the filing and hasn't received a response. A source with knowledge of the litigation said, "This is a pattern of behavior—whenever there is a decision that goes against the other side they consistently choose to introduce misleading, inaccurate and/or irrelevant information as a distraction."

Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, Paper & Glue: A JR Project Premiere, 2021 — JC Olivera/Getty Images

The source continued, "There was a lengthy custody trial that involved the entire history of their relationship and a judge who heard all the evidence still granted him 50/50 custody."

In 2022, a rep for Brad, who was not authorized to speak publicly, denied Angelina's allegations about the plane incident, and said in a statement to the Associated Press that it was "another rehash that only harms the family." In addition, 2016 FBI and DCFS investigations into the accusations were closed with no charges filed.

The Salt actress had also changed her last name years before she met Brad. In 2002, at age 27, dropping her father Jon Voight's surname in favor of her middle name after years of going by the stage name Angelina Jolie.

While Angelina and Brad largely kept their kids out of the spotlight when they were younger, in recent years, the children have occasionally joined their mom at celebrity events. Look back at Shiloh's red carpet styles...

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