Once the picture-perfect blended family, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were rarely seen on a red carpet or jetting around the globe without their famous brood in tow.
However, next year will mark ten years since one of Hollywood’s most iconic couples dramatically split, with the reverberations of their toxic court battle, which was settled in December after eight years, all but splitting their once happy family unit. The actors are parents to Maddox, 23 and Pax, 21.
And last week, the sad tale took another shock twist as a source close to Brad claimed that the actor now believes his relationship with his two eldest children, Maddox, 23, and Pax, 21, has gone so far as to now be ‘unfixable’. He’s also dad to Zahara, 20, Shiloh, 19, and twins Vivienne and Knox, 17.
‘He’s heartbroken but he’s at the point of having to accept that things with Maddox and Pax are beyond repair, unless some miracle happens,’ the source says.
While as far back as 2021, Maddox has called himself ‘Maddox Jolie’, a source says the scenes of Pax staggering and being held upright by pals as he left the A-list hotspot Chateau Marmont and headed to a strip club earlier this month proved to be the final incentive Brad needed to all but give up on his second son.
Pax’s partying also follows two E bike accidents in the past year. In July last year, reports suggested that he’d potentially suffered a ‘brain bleed’ after crashing while not wearing a helmet and, again in January this year, Pax was also involved in a collision with a car, but left the scene unharmed.
And now a source tells heat that Brad, who we recently shared has been left exasperated by his son’s ‘next level bad behaviour’, has now reached a new level of acceptance that their broken relationship could be beyond fixing.
The insider tells us, ‘He has zero concern with what Pax does or doesn't do – his actions reflect who he is. Brad honestly considers his relationship with Pax unfixable. Brad feels pretty well isolated from all of his kids at this point but with Maddox and Pax things are so far gone it’s hard to imagine that they’ll ever speak to him again.
‘They’re both so angry and have gone no contact so anything he does to try to connect is seen as a violation of their boundaries. He’s in this awful position and has had no choice but to give up.
They continue, ‘Don’t forget he was once incredibly close with both boys, he did everything he could to give them a wonderful life and now it’s like he never existed to them.’
In 2020, Pax delivered a scathing attack on Brad on Father’s Day, writing alongside a photograph of his dad, ‘Happy Father's Day to this world-class a***hole! You time and time and again prove yourself to be a terrible and despicable person’, further accusing Brad of making his youngest children ‘tremble with fear’ and making their lives ‘constant hell’.
‘That was a knife to Brad’s heart,’ the source tells us now. Brad would never speak about it in public and he does his best to act like it doesn’t hurt, but it was soul crushing. No doubt he questions what kind of dad he must have been to warrant this kind of rejection.’
While Brad, 61 – whose alleged altercation with their eldest son Maddox on the family’s private jet is believed to be what sparked fiercely protective Angelina into action and commence divorce proceedings just a day later – is reported to have difficult relationships with all his kids, Angelina remains a constant presence in all of their lives.
And while this has previously depicted as a source of empowerment for Angelina, 50, who has admitted to being forced to stay in LA as per her divorce agreement so that Brad can be close to his children, the actress has also said that the kids’ estrangement from their father caused ‘a lot of wounds’.
While the children have all remained close to their mum, with Pax reportedly living in the Manhattan apartment Angelina bought in her 20s, the latest reports come after it was revealed last year that Maddox and Pax already had ‘virtually no contact’ with Brad.
Meanwhile the former couple’s eldest daughter, Zahara, also introduced herself as ‘Zahara Marley Jolie’ during her college sorority introduction in 2023, with her younger sister Vivienne following suit and dropping the ‘Pitt’ from ‘Vivienne Jolie-Pitt’ when her name appeared in the playbill for 'The Outsider' last year.
Brad was then hit by further heartbreak earlier this month when his ‘lookalike’ daughter Shiloh debuted her name change for the first time when she was listed as ‘Shi Joli’ for her role as choreographer for a dance at a high-end fashion launch held in California.
Brad’s devastation will undoubtedly be compounded as he gets closer to his twins’ 18th birthday – and the end of his visitation rights – in July 2026, but the source says that rather than direct his anger at his children, Brad has placed the blame directly at Angelina’s doorstop.
The source tells us, ‘He doesn’t blame the kids, he blames Angelina and has told friends she’s been poisoning them against him for years and painting him as some kind of monster. He’s devastated that they’ve bought into it and want nothing to do with him. He’s tried everything possible to fix things and nothing has worked and it’s left him very depressed and angry.
‘He never imagined when he and Angelina split up that it would get this ugly. Sure he expected some wrath from her but in his view she’s used their kids as pawns to hurt him.’
The actor’s estrangement from his children follows an alleged altercation between Maddox, then 15, on the family’s plane just a day before Angelina filed for divorce in 2016.
While the accusations were kept largely under wraps at the time, they were explosively revealed during Brad and Angelina’s dispute over their French vineyard in 2022, when Angelina’s lawyer alleged that Brad ‘grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her’ before he ‘choked one of the children and struck another in the face’. Brad has always denied being abusive towards Angelina or his children and the FBI cleared him of allegations linked to the plane incident.
Now the source says Angelina feels ‘heartbroken’ at how everything has turned out – and Brad’s complete estrangement from their two eldest – but has only ever acted in a way that she believed would ultimately be best for her children.
The source explains, ‘For Angelina, she’s done nothing but protect their kids and allow them to make their own choices. But Brad doesn’t see it that way, to him this was a calculated attack and the way he tells it he’s the victim in all this.’
However, the insider insists Brad still ‘loves’ his children and is still holding out hope that he can ‘fix’ his family and be with his children again.
They continue, ‘As dismal as things are with Zahara, Shiloh, Vivienne and Knox, the lines of communication are at least open so Brad believes there’s still a shot. He’s walking on eggshells, trying not to push too hard but he’s not ready to give up.
‘The pressure is crushing him but he loves his kids and can’t just walk away.’