Getting starstruck by a politician while remaining totally calm at movie premieres. Supporting his
mom with a powerful fashion statement. Skipping high school graduation for a unique reason.
Pax Jolie-Pitt is no longer that same little boy his famous mom adopted all those years ago.
Pax Jolie-Pitt spent his early years at an orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam. He was known as Pham Quang Sang until he was adopted by Angelina Jolie in 2007.
He was about 3-and-a-half years old when Angelina became his mother and gave him
the name Pax Thien Jolie. "Pax" means "peace" in Latin, while "Thien" means "sky" in Vietnamese.
Later that year, a Santa Monica court permitted his name to legally be changed to Pax Thien
Jolie-Pitt to reflect the identity of his new father, Brad Pitt, Angelina's then-partner.
While little is known about Pax's biological family, he was reportedly found abandoned at
birth at a local hospital in Vietnam in 2003. After a failed search for his birth mother,
the orphanage took him in, and he stayed there until March 2007. When Angelina
left the orphanage with her new little one, she reportedly wrote in the visitors' book,
"Thank you for taking such wonderful care of my son. I am sure he will miss your beautiful,
caring staff as much as you will miss him."
When Angelina Jolie adopted Pax in 2007,
she was embracing motherhood for a fourth time. She had previously adopted Maddox from Cambodia
and Zahara Marley from Ethiopia and given birth to her daughter Shiloh.
But the decision to adopt again wasn't exactly a sure thing. As she explained to Vogue in 2020,
"I did originally think not to adopt from Vietnam
because Mad was Cambodian and the two countries have a complex history."
Ultimately, though, she was compelled to go through with her decision. As she put it,
"I thought of focusing on a future where we were all family.
I am very blessed to have been allowed to be their mom. I am grateful every day."
In an interview with People Magazine soon after bringing Pax home,
Angelina gushed about the relationship between her sons. As she put it,
"Pax and Maddox have really connected because they're closer in age and are
brothers so they have moments when they bond together against everybody else in the family.
They are a really tough team and then they have moments when they bug each other.
It’s quite normal and it’s nice. It’s never quiet in our house."
"They are an amazing team, so I'm very, very fortunate."
Pax Jolie-Pitt has famously assumed the role of the shy one in his family.
But there is more to this young man than meets the eye. In a 2011 interview with Anderson Cooper,
his mother likened him to a punk rocker. As she put it,
"When you really get to know them […] they are just pussycats."
In another interview soon after Pax's adoption,
Angelina shed light on Pax's early days with the family, as she revealed,
"He spent three-and-a-half years of his life in one place, in one room,
in this one little iron bed with 20 other kids and having no choice for himself to do things,
having no freedom. And suddenly here he is in a very free situation."
In another interview with People Magazine that year, Angelina even called him the
"loudest member of the family." Pax's former guardians at the orphanage have
also spoken highly of him. As the head of the orphanage revealed to Time Magazine in 2007,
"It's common for orphans to be shy. When they play in a group or team, he's very active,
but shy once separated [...] He's very clever and I hope he has a good life."
Pax Jolie-Pitt has two acting credits to his name: 2014's Maleficent and 2016's Kung Fu Panda 3,
which both starred his mom. In the former, he appears with his sister Zahara in a scene in which
their mother paces around as the title character. As Angelina revealed to Entertainment Weekly,
"I had to walk by them being very mean. Of course, I wanted to stop and wink at them."
"Oh dear. What an awkward situation."
For Kung Fu Panda 3, Pax joined his siblings to record animal noises, which they all had plenty of
fun doing, according to their mother. And that's not all when it comes to Pax's movie career.
For the 2017 war film First They Killed My Father, directed by Angelina, Pax worked on a lot of the
camera stills, while his brother Maddox helped with research. Despite their budding cinematic
resumes, the Jolie-Pitt kids apparently aren't exactly inclined towards the family business.
As Angelina revealed on a BBC Radio interview in 2016,
"None of my kids want to be actors. They are actually very interested
in being musicians [...] Pax loves music and deejaying."
Having superstars for parents certainly comes with its perks, including front-row access
to some of the glitziest events in town. As a child of two of the biggest stars in the world,
Pax Jolie-Pitt has been a regular at film premieres with his siblings from an early
age. Considering that he's famously shy, you might imagine that he would get tense in front
of all the dazzling lights. But as it turns out, movie premieres really don't make him nervous.
But it was a little different in 2015, when a then-11-year-old Pax accompanied
his mom to Asia to meet Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi. As Angelina recalled to Vogue,
"Seeing Pax get extra-nervous about which shirt he is going to wear when he meets
Aung San Suu Kyi, I get very moved. He rightfully doesn't
get nervous going to a movie premiere; he gets nervous going to meet her."
In 2017, all of Angelina's children joined her for the opening of her movie First They Killed My
Father in Cambodia. And Pax even filled in for his mom one time at a premiere. That was back in 2014,
when Angelina had come down with chickenpox, so Pax and his siblings accompanied their dad
Brad to the premiere of Unbroken, which their mom had directed. More recently, Pax joined
his mom on the red carpet once again for the documentary Paper & Glue in November 2021.
Angelina Jolie and her six kids certainly appear to be a tight-knit family unit.
They're often spotted out and about together in public, not just at black-tie events but
in other spaces as well. Pax in particular has been snapped spending quality time with
his mom on shopping trips and dinner dates around Los Angeles. In 2017, for example,
they stepped out for a private dinner in Hollywood on Mother's Day,
the first since her split from Brad Pitt the previous year. As a source revealed to E! News,
"She appeared in high spirits and they both looked very happy to spend Mother's Day
together [...] They were giggling and laughing throughout dinner."
2021 was also a bustling year with one-on-one outings for this dapper duo. In August, Pax and
his mom enjoyed a night out together at Japanese joint Nobu, and in December, he joined her for
lunch and shopping in West Hollywood. Angelina's busy schedule could make it difficult to spend
quality time with her kids, but she's made sure to get around that. As she told Vogue in 2015,
"I schedule individual time with each of the kids like a crazy person."
"I"m a mom. So that's my, my thing."
Pax Jolie-Pitt has remained rooted to the culture of his birth country.
After adopting him, his mother learned some Vietnamese to communicate with him,
and as he grew older, he also learned more of the language.
In November 2011, when Pax was eight, he made his first trip back to Vietnam.
As reported by Us Weekly, the itinerary included meeting his biological grandmother.
Reports also suggested that Angelina and Brad Pitt, along with all their children,
were due to visit the orphanage where Pax lived until he was adopted.
Angelina talked about her children in a 2011 interview with Financial Times, as she revealed,
"They are all learning about each other's cultures as well as being proud of their
own. [...] They all have their flags over their beds and their individual pride."
Pax also keeps in touch with his roots via what's on his plate.
Crickets, a traditional delicacy in certain South Asian countries,
are reportedly a favorite of his and his brother Maddox. As Angelina revealed in 2011,
"When I first gave it to them ... I wanted them not to be turned off by
something that was of their culture. They ate them like Doritos, and they wouldn't
stop. They brought to-go boxes home and I had to actually ban the cricket eating at a
certain point because I was afraid they were going to get sick from too many."
Pax Jolie-Pitt grabbed more attention than ever when he accompanied his mother to the
2018 Golden Globes. It was reportedly his first time at that particular awards show,
and he made sure to turn heads, not just for his dapper ensemble, but also for the Time's
Up pin he sported on his lapel. This was a timely decision, as a collective of Hollywood stars had
recently founded the nonprofit ​​Time's Up on the heels of the global MeToo movement.
The organization positions itself as a force working against sexual harassment.
"A unified message that had nothing to do with the
awards and everything to do with change in Hollywood and beyond."
For a young boy of only 14 to lend support to such a significant cause
might have otherwise seemed out of the ordinary. But in Pax's case,
his decision wasn't too hard to understand: His mother, after all,
had been vocal about her own experience with disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein.
She was one of many who had come forward a year earlier to accuse the entertainment mogul of
sexual harassment. Angelina alleged that he'd made advances on her in the late 90s. As she claimed,
"I had a bad experience with Harvey Weinstein in my youth,
and as a result, chose never to work with him again and warn others when they did."
In June 2021, Pax Jolie-Pitt graduated high school at the age of 17 from an institution
in Los Angeles. But this fiercely private celebrity child appeared to be missing
from the official celebrations. As a source explained to The Sun,
"He's shy and it was believed he didn't want to bring a circus to the event."
While Pax didn't speak publicly about his motivation behind the decision,
it likely had something to do with the media attention fixated on his family that year. After a
more than 12-year-long relationship as Hollywood's most powerful couple, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie
parted ways in 2016, thereby commencing a lengthy, messy divorce. And Pax's graduation coincided with
a sharp turn in the custody battle. Just a month before his ceremony, a court ruled for Brad to
have joint custody of his kids, a decision that was reportedly criticized by Angelina.
From a young age, Pax Jolie-Pitt has often appeared in paparazzi pictures
clinging closely to his dad Brad Pitt. But the bitter separation of his parents in 2016
reportedly complicated their relationship. Amidst the storm of sensational reporting on the divorce,
Us Weekly noted that Brad allegedly never wanted to adopt Pax in 2007 and was upset
that Angelina had gone ahead with the adoption, although Brad reportedly denied these claims.
In 2018, the dynamic between Brad and Pax showed signs of a possible
breakthrough. As reported by Us Weekly, all of Brad's children except for the eldest,
Maddox, stayed overnight at his house to ring in his 55th birthday. But tensions in
the relationship haven't completely subsided. In 2020, Us Weekly reported that Brad's ties
with his sons Maddox and Pax were still severely strained. As a source alleged,
"That relationship [with Maddox] continues to be nonexistent."
The source also noted that Brad and Pax don't see or speak to each other and further explained,
"With Maddox overseas [for college], Brad is also hopeful that Pax will also
be interested in reconnecting without the influence of his older brother."
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape,
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