Angelina Jolie’s public persona is often intertwined with her relationships, and her marriage to Billy Bob Thornton was no exception.
The couple, who met on the set of Pushing Tin in 1999, quickly tied the knot in May 2000 in Las Vegas.
At the time, Thornton was engaged to Big Little Lies star Laura Dern, which added to the shock factor of their marriage.
The couple’s relationship was unconventional in many ways, from their 20-year age difference to wearing vials of each other’s blood as necklaces.
However, their marriage ended just two years later in 2002.
In a 2015 interview with Vanity Fair, Jolie cited growing apart due to their different interests as the reason for their divorce.
Jolie had become more politically active and involved in humanitarian work, while Thornton was focused on his music.
“In a year I became who I am today, very much, and he became who he is today,” she explained.
Additionally, Jolie believed they were on “totally different paths in life” and that they simply had “nothing to say to each other.”
Jolie also addressed rumors that Thornton had cheated on her, saying that she didn’t think they were untrue.
She noted that he wasn’t ready to expand their family, even though they had planned to adopt her son, Maddox, together.
Despite their divorce, Jolie still held Thornton in high regard, saying that he was a “really good man.”
Thornton, on the other hand, seemed more bewildered by their breakup in a 2003 interview with Entertainment Weekly.
He compared it to being in a nightclub one moment and then suddenly experiencing a chaotic event.
“It was like, say you’re going to a nightclub one night with your friends and you’re in line and the next thing you know there are guys with helicopters and there’s machine-gun fire and you don’t know what happened.
And that’s kind of like what our breakup was like.”
Despite their divorce, the couple maintained a strong friendship over the years.
In a 2016 interview with GQ, Thornton expressed his continued fondness of Jolie but also admitted that he “never felt good enough for her.” Jolie has also spoken about their continued friendship, saying that “we’re great friends” and that they “talk on the phone a lot.”
Jolie’s previous marriage to Thornton was not her first high-profile relationship.
Prior to marrying Thornton, Jolie was briefly married to Jonny Lee Miller in 1996 and engaged to Timothy Hutton in 1998.
Following her divorce from Thornton, Jolie went on to marry Brad Pitt in 2014.
However, their marriage also ended in divorce in 2019.
