BRAD AND JEN: STILL FRIENDS
September 05, 2007 Brad Pitt is opening up for the first time about his headline-making split with Jennifer Aniston.
In an in-depth interview in the Fall 2007 issue of V Magazine, Pitt discusses his failed marriage and also candidly talks about partner Angelina Jolie, fatherhood and the birth of the couple's biological daughter, Shiloh, in Africa.
The sexy actor comments on the media's obsession with his life. Pitt says, contrary to what many believe, he maintains a "deep friendship" with his ex-wife, Jennifer Aniston, 38, and defends how he ended their four-and-a-half year marriage in January 2005. Although it was widely reported that Pitt and Jolie began their relationship while he was still married to Aniston, he claims he stifled his attraction to Angelina Jolie, 32, until after he and Aniston had ended the marriage.
"The most important thing about that time was for Jen and me to figure out if -- how do I put it? -- if we didn't want to go on without any outside influence," he tells the magazine of the last days of his marriage. "Is this where we got off? Have we taken this as far as we wanted to go? Those questions had to be answered before an attraction to Angie could be answered."
The question remains, is Pitt happy with how he handled his split from Aniston? The 43 year-old actor says feelings of the parties involved was most important to him. He replies, "I don't know how better to have handled it...The thing guiding me then was you don't know how many days you have, and you need life to be everything you need it to be."
As for fatherhood, Pitt says it has transformed his life. "It's hilarious. It's the funniest, most lovely thing I've ever taken on. And the biggest pain in the ass as well [laughs]. And I couldn't go back. I couldn't imagine it any other way," says the superstar.
Jolie gave birth to daughter Shiloh in Africa. In response to the media's accusations that Pitt and Jolie lured paparazzi to Africa to expose issues in the country, Pitt responds, "It's fourfold. For one, we know that's going to happen so it becomes a plus. It's all about cost and gain, plusses and minuses. Two, and most importantly, we loved the idea of our daughter being born on another continent, something she'll be able to have roots in as well and want to explore as she gets older. That was the preeminent factor for us. Three, we knew that they had very strong privacy laws there. And we knew there was going to be a huge bounty on our heads and we were going to get very little peace unless we went to a place like that. And four, it happened to be a place that we loved."
The Fall 2007 issue of V Magazine hits newsstands on Friday, September 7th.
