Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt remain entangled in a bitter divorce battle.
While information about the former super couple is scarce, insiders have spoken to the media, revealing deeper insights into the collapse of their marriage.
One notable voice is Angelina Jolie’s childhood nanny, who says that the actress is demonizing Brad Pitt and using their children as pawns in their ongoing conflict.
Angelina Jolie’s childhood nanny, Krisann Morel, had a profound impact on the actress’s life — at least according to Morel herself. Caring for Jolie during her formative years, she became an integral part of the family, developing a close bond with Jolie’s mother, Marcheline Bertrand, who sadly passed away from cancer.
Morel first emerged in the headlines in 2010 when Andrew Morton published an unauthorized biography of Angelina Jolie.
Unlike many anonymous sources featured in Morton’s work, the nanny stepped forward with her name, offering a unique glimpse into Jolie’s tumultuous upbringing. Her account paints a dark picture of the actress’s early life, marked by heartbreaking details.
Lived in rented apartments
The chaos began when Jolie’s parents, Marcheline Bertrand and Jon Voight, separated in 1976. Jolie was just six months old when her father ran away with a young drama student, leaving the family in shatters.
“Jon Voight was a terrible father to her back then. He cheated on her mother. Marcheline was broken-hearted,” said Susan Margaret, the mother of a childhood friend of Jolie’s in an interview.
“She told me Jon had emotionally abused her. She said he had a thing for a Hollywood starlet. Angelina had a difficult time growing up with what was going on. She has a lot of hostility toward her dad,” she went on to say.
Bertrand then sacrificed her own acting ambitions to focus on raising Jolie and her older brother, James Haven Voight. During her first years in life, Angelina lived with her brother and mother in a series of rented apartments across New York City.
”Troubled child”
“We weren’t poor, but because I was the child of an actor, there was an idea that we had a lot of money,” Angelina herself revealed in 2002.
But according to the family’s nanny, the financial struggles were not the worst part.
Morel said that Bertrand struggled with her feelings towards her baby daughter. The nanny claims that Bertrand could barely bear to look at Jolie because she bore such a striking resemblance to her father. The situation escalated to the point where, for two years, the mother sequestered Jolie in a separate apartment in their building, where she was cared for by a rotating staff of caregivers.
”Angie to me was a very lonely and troubled child. Even before she was born her mother became convinced that her husband Jon was having an affair with Stacey,” Morel told Daily Mail in 2016.
The apartment was intended for Jon’s production company, but Angelina ended up living there with a team of nannies. Jolie’s mother, who lived three floors below, often avoided seeing her young daughter.
Occasionally, the mother would make her way upstairs, where she’d sit with the nanny, sipping coffee and weeping as she lamented her circumstances.
”I just broke my heart. It upsets me now. I really felt for that kid,” Morel shared in Angelina: An Unauthorized Biography.
Used as a weapon
Morel revealed that Angelina and her brother, James Haven, were primarily raised by a group of nannies and often caught in the crossfire of their mother’s struggles. According to Morel, Angelina was frequently used as a weapon against their womanizing father.
”Jon was portrayed as this evil figure and Marcheline succeeded in turning both his children against him. But it led to years of heartbreak and wounds that still haven’t healed to this day,” Morel told Daily Mail.
After the fractured ”Brangelina” marriage, nanny Morel feared that Angelina might repeat her mother’s mistakes with Pitt. She pointed out the startling similarities between Angelina’s current situation and her own troubled childhood when Bertrand cut all ties with Jon Voight.
Morel expressed her concerns, saying, ”I want to tell her, ‘Please don’t cut Brad out of the children’s lives. Don’t use the children as weapons in your divorce. And don’t demonize your husband.’ Because that is exactly what your mother did when she was breaking up with your father. And the result was you had a lonely and traumatic childhood. Why would you inflict the same tragedy on your kids?”
Current situation
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt share six children — three adopted (Pax, Maddox, and Zahara) and three biological (Shiloh, Vivienne, and Knox). Since their high-profile split in 2016, the former Hollywood power couple has been locked in a tumultuous custody battle.
For years, the court drama saw ups and downs. Jolie initially held full custody until May 2021, when Pitt was granted joint custody. However, the decision was overturned after Los Angeles Superior Court Judge John W. Ouderkirk, who had ruled in Pitt’s favor, was removed from the case. The judge’s failure to disclose his business ties with Pitt’s legal team raised concerns about his impartiality.
As of now, Jolie retains primary physical custody, while Pitt has “custodial time” with their minor children. But the final word is likely far from being said
As recently as April of this year were papers submitted by Jolie to the Los Angeles Superior Court accusing Pitt of physical abuse – something he has vehemently denied.
One of Angelina and Brad’s children, Vivienne, had reportedly elected to drop ‘Pitt’ from her last name, and Vivienne’s sister, Shiloh, has also moved to do the same thing, but in a official way.
Meanwhile, 19-year-old Zahara – one of Angelina and Brad’s three adopted children – reportedly also goes by Zahara Jolie these days, and TMZ say that the oldest of the siblings, Maddox, 22, doesn’t use ‘Pitt’ in his surname either.
To Brad, it wasn’t just a simple name change; it represented a deeper estrangement that had been growing between him and his children for years. As per Little Things, the breakdown in relations between Brad and his children has greatly affected the superstar actor, with a source stating: “Brad was devastated by this choice.
Adding to the tension, his son Pax, as some readers may recall, harshly criticized Pitt in an Instagram post from 2020 that resurfaced recently.
“You have made the lives of those closest to me a constant hell,” Pax allegedly wrote on his private Instagram account.
“You may tell yourself and the world whatever you want, but the truth will come to light someday.“
He finished: “So Happy Father’s Day, you f*****g awful human being.”
A heartfelt plea
As stands, Shiloh is the only one of the children to legally move to have their name changed, but the overall message appears fairly clear: all of them are siding with their mother as concerns the ongoing discontent between their parents.
According to Krisann Morel, Angelina still has abandonment issues that are being played out in her and her children’s life today.
”’I don’t know Brad Pitt but he seems like a good person and he looks just like Jon, so this is an exact repeat of the past. Angie doesn’t have any concept of what a normal family is like. Brad does, he came from one,” she said in 2016.
”These kids have been through enough. Angie is trying to cut off their dad just like her mom did with her father. There is so little stability for these children as they travel so much – she is threatening to take away the one bit of stability they have.”
What do you think? Should Angelina prioritize her children’s relationship with their father, or is it more important to protect them from the pain of their parents’ history? Share your thoughts below!
READ MORE
- Shiloh Jolie drops ‘Pitt’ from surname, breaks silence on name change
- Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s son Pax Jolie-Pitt has a ‘long road to recovery’ after horrible accident