Actress Angelina Jolie gushed over her children and spoke about their impact on her life.
In a recent interview with “Vogue” for their digital cover story, Jolie, 48, opened up about becoming a mother to her first child, Maddox, 22, whom she adopted in 2002 from an orphanage in Cambodia.
In total, she shares six children Pax, 19, Zahara, 18, Shiloh, 17, and twins Vivienne and Knox, 15, with actor Brad Pitt, whom she divorced in 2016.
“I was 26 when I became a mother. My entire life changed,” she said. “Having children saved me and taught me to be in this world differently.”
Jolie also credited her children for giving her a reason to live and not having “gone under in a much darker way.”
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“They’re better than me because you want your children to be,” she added.
The “Maleficent” actress continued, “Of course, I’m the mother, and hopefully that safe place for them and that stability. But I’m also the one that they laugh at and I see them taking over so many different aspects of our family.”
During the interview, Jolie shared what she remembered about her mother actress Marcheline Bertrand, who died in 2007 after an eight-year battle with ovarian and breast cancer at age 56.
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“My mother was a hippie—she called herself that, she was very proud,” she recalled.
She described her mother as a woman who “didn’t shop a lot” and “loved her velvets and her suedes.”
“She never wore makeup, nor did she really do her hair. She wasn’t a flashy person—she was elegant, natural,” Jolie continued.
In an interview with People in 2021, Jolie called her children “pretty great people.”
“And because there’s so many of them, I think they’ve had a very significant effect on each other. It’s not like I’m the head of anything,” she shared.
She added, “I’m very honest with my kids. And I’m very human with my kids.”