With Vivienne Jolie, we now have four out of six Jolie-Pitt kids going the official route to formally drop Brad Pitt’s surname from their legal names. Vivienne’s legal filing to change her name came not even two weeks after her 18th birthday. Shiloh Jolie also changed her name around her 18th, while Maddox and Zahara, both in their 20s, only filed name-change petitions this year. It’s clear that the kids want nothing to do with Brad Pitt. People are starting to wonder if this slow-motion trainwreck around Brad will hurt his career. I mean… voters gave him an Oscar after he terrorized his wife and children on a plane and hired a crisis management team to smear Angelina Jolie. Overall, Brad will be fine. Still, it’s interesting that this is a conversation:
“For those that followed the Pitt/Jolie divorce since 2016, it should be no surprise that Angelina Jolie is finally able to achieve what she attempted to get in the 2016 divorce — a complete cutting of ties between the children and Brad Pitt,” Holly Davis, cofounder of Kirker Davis LLP, told Fox News Digital.
What ultimately drove the children’s estrangement from their father remains impossible to know from the outside, according to Davis. “Whether or not she influenced them in hating their father based on the legitimate problems in her romantic relationship with Brad, or whether they all suffered similar difficult moments as a family which lead to their decision to no longer see him, will be anyone’s guess,” the family attorney said.
Jolie may have effectively severed the remaining legal family ties, but experts say the public fallout might not significantly damage Pitt’s Hollywood standing.
“Brandwise, it’s not that big of a hit to Brad Pitt’s name or brand,” entertainment attorney Tre Lovell told Fox News Digital. “He’s such a universally well-known star, and his divorce with Angelina Jolie and strained relationship with his kids have been well publicized. Most of the public would chalk it up to an unfortunate problem with the relationship with his kids, but as far as his brand, it’s still strong and would survive any type of criticism in this area,” the lawyer for Los Angeles-based Lovell Firm explained.
Five of Pitt and Jolie’s children have distanced themselves from the actor by dropping his surname, with Vivienne and three of her siblings choosing to make the change official legally.
“[Pitt’s] talent remains unquestioned. But when multiple adult children publicly choose to stop using your surname, the conversation inevitably shifts from career to character,” crisis communications expert Kaivan Shroff told Fox News Digital. “Whether fair or unfair, that’s the kind of narrative no amount of good publicity can easily overcome. This isn’t about a single family decision… it’s about accumulation. One child dropping a famous last name might be dismissed as an isolated event. When it happens repeatedly across multiple adult children, it stops looking like celebrity gossip and starts becoming part of a public figure’s legacy.”
The entertainment attorney for Los Angeles-based Holtz Matthews LLP argued that while the decision to drop Pitt’s last name was “highly personal,” it is likely to leave many members of the public “sympathetic to Pitt’s position.”
Yeah, if I find out that a person’s six children want nothing to do with them, and that all or most of the kids went through the process of changing their names to not have any reminder of their parent, that’s not going to make me or anyone else more sympathetic towards the parent.
Incidentally, I actually think what’s happening with Brad is a lot like what happened to and around Tom Cruise. After Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ divorce, Tom’s celebrity brand was a dumpster fire. He stopped seeing Suri completely, and he and Katie had some kind of intense divorce settlement which meant that she could not speak about him post-divorce. People don’t “remember” any of that, because Tom basically went all-in with his Mr. Hollywood persona, and made his life all about work, with barely any drama about his personal life. That’s sort of what they’re trying to do with Brad – make it all about how he’s one of the last movie stars, one of the few people who can open a film, and just force people forget about his personal life. The problem? Brad is his own worst enemy, and his “movie star” persona has always been tied to his personal life. Tom was only able to rebrand when he effectively cauterized all of his personal drama – Brad is still suing Angelina and obsessed with “punishing” the woman who left him a decade ago.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.
