Angelina Jolie reveals she had Bell’s palsy, talks Brad Pitt divorce in new Vanity Fair interview
Angelina Jolie discussed her split with Brad Pitt and Bell's palsy diagnosis with Vanity Fair. Credit: AP / Petros Giannakouris
In a wide-ranging interview with Vanity Fair, film star Angelina Jolie says her children are coping well with her divorce from ex-husband Brad Pitt, and that she has recently recovered from a bout of Bell’s palsy.
“It’s just been the hardest time, and we’re just kind of coming up for air,” the Oscar-winner, 42, says in the September issue. The $25 million Los Angeles mansion she purchased after living in a rental home for nine months with her and Pitt’s six children “is a big jump forward for us, and we’re all trying to do our best to heal our family.”
In September, “Salt” and “Maleficent” star Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt after two years of marriage and more than a decade together. This followed an alleged altercation involving a purportedly inebriated Pitt and one of the children on a private plane days earlier.
“We’re all just healing from the events that led to the filing . . . They’re not healing from divorce,” Jolie explains. “They’re healing from some . . . from life, from things in life,” she said vaguely.
She says the couple’s lifestyle, in which their brood, now aged 9 to 15, accompanied them around the world, “was not in any way a negative . . . That was not the problem. That is and will remain one of the wonderful opportunities we are able to give our children . . . They’re six very strong-minded, thoughtful, worldly individuals. I’m very proud of them,” she said, adding, “They’ve been very brave. They were very brave.”
The actress additionally says she was diagnosed last year with Bell’s palsy and has since recovered. A form of temporary facial paralysis caused by damage to facial nerves, the condition can manifest as drooping skin, twitching or paralysis on one or both sides of the face. Jolie credits acupuncture for her recovery. Noticing separately that her skin has gotten drier and gray hairs more prominent, she jokes that, “I can’t tell if it’s menopause or if it’s just been the year I’ve had.”
Jolie has been concentrating professionally on the historical drama “First They Killed My Father.” She directed and, with memoirist Loung Ung, coscripted the film based on Ung’s 2000 book about Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge genocide. It is scheduled to premiere on Netflix this year.
Otherwise, “I’m just wanting to make the proper breakfast and keep the house. That’s my passion. At the request of my kids, I’m taking cooking classes. As I go to sleep at night, I think, Did I do a great job as a mom or was that an average day?”
