The end of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie?
Are Hollywood's Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt heading for splitsville?
After months of "are they, aren't they", Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are set to go their separate ways, according to UK newspaper the News of the World.
The daily paper on Sunday quoted an anonymous source who claims the power couple had signed legal documents this week agreeing to the split.
Quoting the source, the News of the World reported: "The document was signed in early January. Both Brad and Angelina had signed it."
"The contract was like a tailor-made version of a pre-nuptial agreement, except for an unmarried couple's split."
The Hollywood couple are said to have been in talks with lawyers to agree a £205million (about Dh1.2 billion) split deal.
The News of the World said legal papers reveal they plan to share their fortune equally, along with custody of their six children.
While the agreement will give them joint custody, the children will live with their mother, it reported.
There have been countless rumours of the split over the years; this latest revelation comes after weeks of intense speculation that the pair have been absent from award ceremonies and events and have been feuding at their family home in California.
At the Hope for Haiti telethon in Los Angeles on Friday, Pitt was photographed backstage, but without Jolie.
Preparations for their break-up reportedly began in December when they visited a Los Angeles lawyer in confidence to start looking at a possible deal.
The pair got together in 2004 while filming Mr and Mrs Smith -- a movie about a warring couple. Widely reported at the time, the relationship ended Pitt's four-year marriage to Friends star Jennifer Aniston. Before Aniston, Pitt was engaged to actress Gwyneth Paltrow.
No stranger to high-profile marriages herself, Jolie has been divorced twice -- from Monster's Ball star Billy Bob Thornton in 2003 and Trainspotting actor Johnny Lee Miller in 1999.
They have three adopted children – Maddox, eight, Pax, six, and Zahara, five -- and three biological children -- Shiloh, three, and 17-month-old twins Knox and Vivienne.
The couple's joint fortune is estimated at around $322 million (about Dh1.18 billion), not including properties in France, California and New Orleans.
In her own words
Talking last month to Germany's Das Neue magazine, Angelina Jolie said: "I doubt that fidelity is absolutely essential for a relationship. It's worse to leave your partner and talk badly about him afterwards. Neither Brad nor I have ever claimed that living together means to be chained together. We make sure that we never restrict each other."
In his own words
On knowing real love, Brad Pitt said to Parade magazine last year:"Do you know how you tell real love? It's when someone else's interest trumps your own. Love of somebody else — of family, of your kids — becomes the most important, most worthwhile thing in your life. You have to recognise real love when it's there and know that in going after it there is always risk. To live with love, you have to chance losing it..."
For the sake of the kids
Before giving birth to three of Brad Pitt's children, Angelina Jolie had struck out on the path of motherhood on her own, adopting Maddox from a Cambodian orphanage in early 2002. She then proceeded to adopt twice more — first Zahara from Ethiopia, accompanied by Pitt in 2005, and then Pax from Vietnam in April 2008.
But the lure of children with Pitt was apparently irresistible. Jolie gave birth to their first child, Shiloh Nouvel, amid high security and a media frenzy in the unusual venue of Swakopmund, Namibia, on May 27, 2006.
The couple juggled their four-strong brood with the help of nannies until Jolie fell pregnant a second time, with twins. This time she picked the more glamorous south of France, where she gave birth on July 12, 2008 to Vivienne Marcheline and Knox Leon.
Playing house
If Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt do split, there'll be no moving in with the parents as the couple are not short of a place to stay. They have three main properties in California, France and New Orleans.
In 2006 the family abandoned their Malibu beach house for a mansion in the Los Feliz neighbourhood. Known as the second Neverland, many things have been added to the property to make it a genuine heaven for children.
Chateau Miraval (pictured) is perhaps their most impressive home. The $60 million (Dh 220 million) chateau in the French Riviera features 35 bedrooms, dates from pre-Roman times, boasts a swimming pool, billiards room, indoor pool, his-and-hers gyms, sauna and jacuzzi and a huge banquet hall.
There were also unconfirmed reports that Pitt and Jolie picked up Ethiopia on Dubai's The World development.
Jennifer: Jilted wife’s Life before and after Brad…
She may be portrayed as “lonely old Jen” these days but the Friends actress has had her fair share of gorgeous men.
- In the early days it was fun, fun, fun as a young Aniston dated everyone from co-stars to musicians. But in 1998 her heart belonged to one man and one man only: Brad.
- Once considered a rare success story in Hollywood the pair met in 1998 and began dating. A lavish Malibu wedding began their very own fairytale. However, the couple announced their separation in 2005, leading the media to jump to their own conclusions about Pitt’s relationship with Jolie, who he had met the year before. Pitt has always denied cheating on Aniston with Jolie.
- Following her divorce, Aniston has been linked to men including Vince Vaughn, with whom she co-starred in The Break Up, followed by model Paul Sculfor and singer John Mayer. There were also tales of dinners with Bradley Cooper of The Hangover fame.
- The blonde bombshell has more recently been rumoured to be firing things up with Scottish hunk Gerard Butler. The pair are about to embark on a promotional tour for their latest movie The Bounty Hunter and have been causing media speculation at high-profile events. They attended the Golden Globes together, but if you believe everything the tabloids write, you’ll also know Butler is said to have gone home with Kate Hudson’s number in his jacket pocket.
