Angelina Jolie explains why she plans to leave LA 'as soon as' her kids are 18

Angelina Jolie doesn’t see herself living in Los Angeles forever.

The actor opened up about her life after L.A. during an Aug. 30 interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

When asked by the publication if she would stay in the city after her children were grown up, she replied, “I grew up in this town. I am here because I have to be here from a divorce, but as soon as they’re 18, I’ll be able to leave.”

“When you have a big family, you want them to have privacy, peace, safety,” she explained further. “I have a house now to raise my children, but sometimes this place can be … that humanity that I found across the world is not what I grew up with here.”

As for where Jolie will live in the future, she said, “I’ll spend a lot of time in Cambodia. I’ll spend time visiting my family members wherever they may be in the world.”

Jolie and her ex-husband, Brad Pitt, are parents to six children: Maddox, 22, Pax, 20, Zahara, 19, Shiloh, 18, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 15.

The former couple initially connected in 2004 on the set of “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.” At the time, Pitt was still married to Jennifer Anniston though the couple ultimately split in 2005, and Jolie was a mother of one after adopting Maddox in 2002.

After expanding their family by five more children between 2005 and 2008, the couple didn’t officially get married until 2014. Two years after their nuptials, Jolie filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences.

In a July 2017 issue of Vanity Fair, Jolie said that “things got bad” during the summer of 2016, before clarifying, “I didn’t want to use that word…Things became ‘difficult.’”

The couple’s contentious divorce has continued over the course of nearly eight years, including details of an incident on a private plane which came to light in 2022, a lengthy custody battle, and a dispute over their shared French winery.

Jolie previously opened up to WSJ. Magazine in December 2023 about her desire to move out of L.A., explaining at the time, “It’s part of what happened after my divorce.”

“I lost the ability to live and travel as freely. I will move when I can,” Jolie added, noting that she intended to spend time at the home she has in Cambodia.

Jolie also got candid about her divorce from Pitt during the interview, sharing with the publication that she had been prioritizing spending time with her children since the split.

“They are the closest people to me and my life, and they’re my close friends,” Jolie said. “We’re seven very different people, which is our strength.”

She said that in spending more time with her children, she made a deliberate choice to cut back on the number of projects she took on.

“We had to heal,” Jolie said. “There are things we needed to heal from.”

Since filing for divorce, Jolie has only appeared in six films, including her new film “Maria,” a biographical drama about opera singer Maria Callas. She also wrote and directed the war drama “Without Blood,” based on a 2002 novel by Alessandro Baricco.

“Maria” made its world premiere at Venice Film Festival on Aug. 29, with Variety reporting that Jolie was crying during the eight-minute standing ovation the film received.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com