Angelina Jolie is opening up about the stress and healing that followed her divorce from Brad Pitt.
In a new interview with WSJ Magazine, the 48-year-old actress admits that she has shifted the way stress impacts her life. The Oscar-winning actress shares that as she has hesitations about her upcoming role as singer Maria Callas in a new film, she notices familiar signs of tension taking over her body.
“My body reacts very strongly to stress,” Jolie tells the magazine. “My blood sugar goes up and down. I suddenly had Bell’s palsy six months before my divorce.”
Jolie and Pitt announced their split in 2016, and have spent the last seven years in and up and down legal battle. They are parents to six children, Maddox, 22, Zahara, 18, Shiloh, 17, Pax,19, and twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline, 15.
“We had to heal,” Jolie says of the time after the divorce with her children. “There are things we needed to heal from.”
Jolie also reveals that she is not dating at the time, and admits that in Los Angeles she “doesn’t really have a social life.” The people she has the closest connection to are her children.
“They are the closest people to me and my life, and they’re my close friends,” she says of her teenage and adult children. “We’re seven very different people, which is our strength.”
Outside of her family, the First They Killed My Father star says that she has a close connection with people who were refugees.
“I realized my closest friends are refugees,” she reveals about her inner circle. “Maybe four out of six of the women that I am close to are from war and conflict.”
The actress notes that she is ready to leave Los Angeles, where she was born, raised and has lived, but cannot due to her divorce. When she moves, she wants to spend more time in Cambodia.
“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,” she shares. “I grew up in quite a shallow place. Of all the places in the world, Hollywood is not a healthy place. So you seek authenticity.”
Jolie’s latest chapter is Atelier Jolie, a fashion venture that will focus on sustainability and labor issues that have plagued the industry for years — inspired by her humanitarian background.
Admitting that she has never had a hand in fashion — despite turning heads on red carpets for years — her signature style of long coats over her everyday looks was challenged by one of her daughters.
“My daughter jokes that I wear too many trench coats,” she shares. “It’s just like a hiding thing.”
With her latest venue and chapter in her life, Jolie admits that she is embracing this stage of her look and body more than ever.
“It’s like I see my scars and my things, and I feel like I’ve lived. And I’m having these big experiences, and I have this map of this complex body that’s changed over time,” Jolie, who had a double mastectomy in 2013, tells WSJ. “You and I both know that a woman with a full life is very sexy.”
RELATED CONTENT: