Angelina Jolie and her brother James Haven made headlines when they kissed on the red carpet at the Academy Awards, setting tongues buzzing.

The siblings were in attendance at the 2000 event to honor Jolie, who was then 24 years old, for her nomination for her role as Lisa Rowe in the psychological drama Girl, Interrupted. She was a relative novice to the film business at the time, but she had already won a Golden Globe and received an Emmy nod for her depiction of late model Gia Marie Carangi in HBO’s Gia.

Indeed, we’re all still perplexed 21 years later by her oddly intense embrace with her brother at the Vanity Fair afterparty.

Jolie won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress that night. She said: “”I’m surprised nobody’s ever fainted up here.

“I’m in shock, and I’m so in love with my brother right now.

“He just held me and said he loved me, and I know he’s so happy for me. And, um, thank you for that.”

Jolie posed for cameras with her award in hand and her brother at her side at the Vanity Fair afterparty later that evening. They exchanged a kiss on the lips at one point, a split-second action that hit the front pages of numerous newspapers the next morning and the covers of magazines the following days.

Melissa Rivers, who cohosted E! Live From the Red Carpet that night, told Bustle in February 2020, “It was a moment that people hadn’t seen at the Oscars — a blatantly sexual moment.” “Here are these two beautiful people who literally looked completely different than anyone in the sea of glam and beauty. [They were] glam and beauty in a completely dark, very sexual way.”

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly in 2000, Jolie stated that she felt only ‘brotherly love’ for Haven, adding, “My parents really loved that moment, and that’s what will always matter.”

In 2007, James told the Daily Mail, ‘I did not give Angie a French kiss. It was something simple and lovely.

‘She was about to go off to Mexico to finish filming Original Sin with Antonio Banderas. I congratulated her on the Oscar win and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. It was snapped and became a big thing.’

He continued, saying: “It was an amazing moment. Yet it was totally misconstrued.”

Following brief marriages to Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton, Jolie eventually settled down and established a family with Brad Pitt, her third spouse. Before splitting in September 2016, Brangelina had six children together: Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, and twins Knox and Vivienne.

Angelina Jolie has had many more famous red carpet events during her career, including donning a vial of her then-husband Billy Bob Thornton’s blood.