The Harper's Bazaar cover is for "the ultimate winter fragrance, Guerlain Mon Guerlain Intense Eau de Parfum." So these quotes may have been prepared at the same time as those for the other Mon Guerlain Intense articles which appeared earlier. Madame Figaro had similar quotes. At least this one is in English. đ What is true for both: She never mentions "divorce." She makes no reference to the filing or the case. She does not give so much as a hint of the incident on the plane, the children's trauma or the efforts to restore Brad's relationship with the children.
It says "she writes candidly." It does not say she responded to questions. There was no interview nor correspondence between them, no actual Q&A. She is characteristically direct even in live interviews. HB and probably Madame Figaro and others altered the supplied questions to make them more attention-grabbing and thus don't align with her answers. If the questions printed below were the actual questions her prepared quotes were designed to respond to, her answers would have clearly addressed them instead of being oddly off target.
Aside from the rare glimpse of the intimately placed Whiskey Bravo for William Bradley tattooed on her right inner thigh, what is notable in what she did say:
"I would love to live abroad and will do so as soon as my children are 18. Right now I’m having to base where their father chooses to live."
In Madame Figaro:
What does your life look like in Los Angeles?Brad has to spend time in L.A. because that's where his therapist, AA meetings, Dr. Katz, and the mental health professionals who are guiding the effort to restore his relationship with the children are based. She is where he needs to be because he needs her with him and she puts his needs ahead of her own wants because that is love. When asked during MMoE's stop in Tokyo: Is there anything more powerful than love? She answered, “Family.” He is both.
I'm not really attached to this town. I'd rather travel more often, but it's not compatible today with Brad's work. I'm cooperating.
Brad said:
"I’ve been thinking about that because I’ve been thinking about death, just in terms of, ‘Where do you want to spend that last leg of your life? We settle in places or get sucked into a place sometimes because of a job or for family, speaking of which, my kids have probably eight more years of school to keep us relatively in one spot. But then comes a time where you think about where you want to spend that last period. For me, it would be somewhere in the mountains.”They often live abroad -- they are living abroad now. They are saying when the twins are in college -- when they are 18 -- they can hop around more freely without fear of disrupting their studies or having to have their tutors in tow.
"Sometimes you get hurt, you see those you love in pain, and you can’t be as free and open as your spirit desires." -- She was hurt. A "family member" said: “Her family is broken and she is in agony. Her children are recovering from the events that brought about the filing” and that left them traumatized. But in "you see those you love in pain" she is referring to Brad. He had to deal with feelings of "no worth," tortured thoughts of "a horrible end," before ultimately, "forgiveness of self." It is why she makes sure she is always there for him. They haven't been free to talk openly about it much as they would want to. But maybe soon. "It’s not new or old, but I do feel the blood returning to my body."
When Josh Horowitz of MTV News asked her about the new ink, she offered merely, “Um, it’s for Brad.”
Harpers Bazaar
As we wrap up 2019, and look ahead to 2020, Harper’s BAZAAR chose Angelina Jolie to grace our final issue of the year because quite simply, there’s no one else like her. Jolie has spent nearly 20 years with the UN Refugee Agency fighting for the rights and freedoms of displaced people, and over 10 years funding schools for girls from Afghanistan to Kenya to Cambodia. She is a Visiting Professor in Practice at the London School of Economics, educating students on peace and security and the fight for women’s rights internationally. She champions women’s health—in particular, treatment for cancer—with honesty and openness about her own health experiences in years past.
Here, she writes candidly about “visible and invisible scars,” her fight for freedom around the world, and why she doesn’t mind sharing her new home in Cambodia with a family of chipmunks.
HARPER'S BAZAAR: We recognize in these photos the free-spirited, bold side of you we know from old. Is that a fair characterization?
ANGELINA JOLIE: My body has been through a lot over the past decade, particularly the past four years, and I have both the visible and invisible scars to show for it. The invisible ones are harder to wrestle with. Life takes many turns. Sometimes you get hurt, you see those you love in pain, and you can’t be as free and open as your spirit desires. It’s not new or old, but I do feel the blood returning to my body.
Do you feel like you’re finding yourself again?
AJ: The part of us that is free, wild, open, curious can get shut down by life. By pain or by harm. My children know my true self, and they have helped me to find it again and to embrace it. They have been through a lot. I learn from their strength. As parents, we encourage our kids to embrace all that they are, and all that they know in their hearts to be right, and they look back at us and want the same for us.
As a mother of six, in a world of social media on a public stage, under relentless scrutiny, how do you teach your kids to be bold?
AJ: Knowing our true self is a very important question for all of us. Especially a child. I think kids need to be able to say, “Here’s who I am, and what I believe.” We can’t prevent them from experiencing pain, heartache, physical pain, and loss. But we can teach them to live better through it.
As a public figure, how do you deal with the frustration of constantly being misunderstood? What do you think is the biggest misconception about you?
AJ: I have a tattoo, “A prayer for the wild at heart kept in cages.” I got it when I was 20. I was with my mom one evening, and I was feeling lost. I was restless—always. I still am. We were driving to dinner, and she talked about spending time with Tennessee Williams and how much she loved his words. She told me he wrote that, about the wild at heart. We drove to a tattoo parlor, and I got it inked on my left arm. What she did for me that night was to remind me that the wild within me is alright and a part of me.
I see so much beauty in other people. Not when they are pretending to be something other than their true selves. Not when they are harming others. Not when they lie. But the wild ones. The emotional, open, searching ones, longing to be free. The honest ones. Because anything else is a cage impossible to live in.
This is our end-of-year edition. Looking ahead to 2020, do you have a message for our readers?
AJ: My dream for everyone in 2020 is to remember who they are and to be who they are regardless of what might be disrupting their ability to be free. If you feel you are not living your life fully, try to identify what it is or who it is that is blocking you from breathing. Identify and fight past whatever is oppressing you. That takes many forms, and it is going to be a different fight for everyone. I say this with a deep understanding that for so many women, freedom is simply not an option. Their own system, community, family, government works against them and is part of what is shutting them down. I’m reading the book No Visible Bruises, which points out that between 2000 and 2006 more American women died from domestic homicide than American soldiers died on the battlefield. It is shocking that across the world the most dangerous place for women today is the home. There are still more than a dozen countries where violence against a wife or family member is legal. And more than 10 countries where perpetrators of rape can still escape prosecution if they marry the victim. And there are more than 70 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, including nearly 26 million refugees. None of this is just “the way the world is.” It is something monstrously out of balance. And our response can’t be to shrug or to think only about our own countries, because we are all connected. This is a time to fight. If there is a fight in this life, it must be for freedoms and rights. And if we have our freedom, we must fight for others who don’t.
Sounds rebellious
AJ: If nobody ever rebelled, nothing would ever change.
As a woman, what does it mean to be truly free? And to live boldly?
AJ: A life fully lived is very hard to do. And for many women it is impossible because of what they are up against. I am conscious every day that I have the freedom to speak openly and to make my own choices. And the ability to encourage my children to explore the world, including the world of ideas and expression, without there being limits to what they are allowed to study or know or imagine themselves doing in the future. I think we all know boldness when we see it. Nothing makes me smile more than when I see someone being fully themselves, with their own individual style and character, whatever that is.
How did you like to dress when you were younger?
AJ: At school I wasn’t that popular person; I was a punk. I loved leather, PVC, and fishnets. Those were my three favorite fabrics in my early 20s. I remember the first time I wore PVC pants. I was waiting for an audition, sitting in the sun in L.A. By the time it was my turn, my pants had fused together. I didn’t get the part. But I loved those pants. I wore something similar when I married Jonny [Lee Miller].
Sølve Sundsbø
Women often feel forced to live up to the standards of “the perfect mother” and “the perfect wife.” Do you think this idea of perfection is dangerous and damaging to women?
AJ: Labeling people and putting them into boxes isn’t freedom. Difference and diversity are what I value most—in my family and in others. I don’t want to live in a world where everyone is the same, and I imagine that’s true for everyone reading this. I want to meet people I’ve never met before and learn things I don’t know. The challenge today is to embrace our differences. And not to be fooled by efforts to divide us or make us fear others. We’re seeing a retreat of values worldwide. Many governments are less willing to stand up for the kinds of values that previous generations fought and died to secure. When governments stand back, people have to lead the way, as they are in different parts of the world.
Have you ever felt restricted in your own life?
AJ: I don’t think of myself that way. In my youth, I focused on what I didn’t have. But as I traveled in my early 20s, my awakening was realizing the freedoms I had in comparison to many people around the world. I’d experienced a childhood free of war. And since then I’ve had the freedom to build my family, to create art, and to play the characters I have. It’s one of the reasons I’ve invested in schools for girls in different countries. To see anyone—but especially a young girl with so much potential—denied their freedom is infuriating to me. I don’t think we will be living in a new era for women’s rights until there has been progress. Until people who’ve raped and abused women and girls in Syria and Myanmar and the DRC, for example, are held accountable. That’s why the focus for the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative is to push for an international accountability mechanism, a body that would allow us to overcome the barriers to justice so prosecutions happen.
Sølve Sundsbø
Has there been progress in Hollywood, in light of #MeToo?
AJ: As anybody knows, the usual starting point in any situation like this is an independent inquiry by experts who can look into the facts and identify what legal changes and protections are needed so there is some measure of independent expert scrutiny and accountability. That hasn’t happened.
You built a home in the Cambodian jungle and became a Cambodian citizen. Can you tell us about that decision? What were some of the biggest challenges? And biggest rewards?
AJ: When you have a loud mind, as I do, you go to places that quiet you, and I find that in the desert, or in the jungle in Cambodia. When I first went to Cambodia, I thought people would be hardened by having experienced so much war and suffering. But in fact it was the opposite. I found them to be full of grace and fight and life. It’s a home and a headquarters for my foundation. There were physical challenges, though. We had to clear nearly 50 land mines before we could live there.
You have traveled the world as both an actor and a United Nations special envoy. What is your favorite place?
AJ: My favorite place is somewhere I’ve never been. I like to be dropped into the middle of something new. I enjoy being out of my element. I want the children to grow up in the world—not just learning about it but living it and having friends around the world. Next year we break ground on a home in Africa.
Sølve Sundsbø
Are you going back to Cambodia soon?
AJ: We got a call the other day informing us that chipmunks have moved into the house. They asked if we should remove them, and Vivienne was very clear that we needed to cover the wires and let them stay. However, the local snakes may have their own opinion on that. The last time I stayed there, I heard screaming down the hall because a friend had found a giant lizard under their pillow. Clearly, the animals are there more than I am and they feel it is their home.
You talk about wanting to encourage your children to explore the world, including the world of ideas and expression. Can you give a specific example of a time when you and your family personally butted up against these kinds of unspoken societal limits?
AJ: I would love to live abroad and will do so as soon as my children are 18. Right now I’m having to base where their father chooses to live.
You say you want freedom for others. What do you mean?
AJ: I do, and not just for those who are oppressed or living with limited rights. I often ask people, “What is it you’ve always wanted to do?” Ninety percent of the time it is an attainable goal and something they admit they could have already done. I think the challenge is to ask yourself what you’ve always wanted to do, and do it. Don’t just be comfortable with what is generally accepted, but find the new. Find your oxygen, your originality, your own voice. Live more fully. Rebel. Resist. Question. Be curious. Explore. Go outside what is comfortable to you. Say the thing you’ve been afraid to say. Put down this magazine, and go and do one thing today you’ve never done before.
ANGELINA'S MISSION
Angelina Jolie is Special Envoy of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, after 18 years with the agency, and Visiting Professor in Practice at the London School of Economics Centre for Women, Peace and Security. She is also cofounder of the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, a global campaign against war-zone rape.
This article originally appears in the Dec-Jan 2019-2020 issue of Harper's BAZAAR, available on newsstands November 19.
Hair: Malcolm Edwards; Makeup: Val Garland; Manicure: Chisato Yamamoto; Production: LaLaLand; Set design: Max Bellhouse; Retouching: Digital Light Ltd.
