As the cover star of the September issue of Vanity Fair, it would be fair to expect that Angelina Jolie was finally opening up in detail about her shock divorce from husband Brad Pitt last year. After all, he did so in May, speaking candidly to GQ Style about his own shortcomings as a partner and father, admitting to abusing alcohol and taking a large part of the blame for the end of their 12-year relationship. Yet Jolie, intriguingly, hasn't responded with her own public-pleasing tell-all: instead, she's said basically nothing at all.
Not that she hasn't addressed the divorce - she has - but the language she uses seems purposefully opaque. She says things like 'Things got bad. I didn’t want to use that word...things became difficult' and 'We’re all just healing from the events that led to the filing, [the children are] healing from some...from life, from things in life.' She's speaking in a very vague, veiled way here, refusing to open up like Pitt did. One thing she does share is that the stress of the divorce led to her to contract Bell's Palsy - a condition that causes the muscles on one side of the face to droop - which is of course an interesting thing to disclose.
Of course, Jolie has been calculatedly coy about the entire affair ever since the shock divorce filing in September 2016. Expertly playing the role of her own publicist (she famously works without one) Jolie quickly took control of the narrative after things started to turn ugly in the tabloids, when she embroiled Pitt in an investigation over abuse claims against their eldest son Maddox (they were subsequently dropped by the FBI). After back-and-forth from their lawyers, Jolie appeared to have a change of heart and agreed to switch from sole to joint custody, and to seal all legal documents from now on.
Indeed, her first public words on the matter were very considered. During a joint statement, the couple said: 'The parents are committed to act as a united front to effectuate recovery and reunification.' She followed up this rhetoric in February, during the promotion for her new film First They Killed My Father in Cambodia, which she attended with all six of her children in her first appearance post-split (bonus points). Sitting down for her first big interview, she told the BBC: 'We are a family and we will always be a family, and we will get through this time and hopefully be a stronger family for it.' Speaking to ABC afterwards, she reiterated that Pitt was still part of the family, saying: 'Of course. Of course, we will always be a family. Always.'
So will we ever know what caused Jolie to file for divorce in the first place? If this latest opportunity is anything to go by, probably not. After all, Vanity Fair is known for its wide-ranging in-depth celebrity interviews, where stars open up about their demons, their past and their hopes for the future (this was the magazine that launched Caitlyn Jenner, published Ronan Farrow's accusations of abuse against Woody Allen and featured a heavily pregnant Demi Moore on its cover). If we were ever going to get the truth from the Oscar-winner, it was now. Brad, the ball's back in your court.
READ MORE: Brad Pitt And Angelina Jolie Release First Joint Statement
READ MORE: Angelina Jolie Makes First Public Appearance Since Divorcing Brad Pitt