Angelina Jolie and her father, Jon Voight, have been candid about navigating ups and downs through the years.
Jolie is the daughter of Voight and late actress Marcheline Bertrand, who died in 2007 after a battle with ovarian and breast cancer. Six months after the pair welcomed Jolie, they called it quits. Jolie and her brother, James Haven, were primarily raised by their mother.
“My mom married at 21, and by the time she was 25 she was divorced with two little kids,” Jolie recalled to The Guardian in 2021. “She couldn’t be the artist she wanted to be, but she raised her children with art and creativity. Even if it was a birthday party, she found a way to put those talents to use.”
She added, “While I loved her softness, she loved my strength. She was very still, and I’m constantly in motion. I was very sexual, and she was much more of a lady. But she saw my true self and encouraged it fully, and she taught me to do that for my own children.”
For three decades, Angelina Jolie has been dominating the entertainment industry one film at a time. The daughter of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand grew up in Los Angeles and decided to follow in her famous parents’ footsteps after failing to succeed as a model. As a teenager, she dealt with numerous personal struggles […]
Jolie — who shares six kids with ex-husband Brad Pitt — has since gone through periods of estrangement from her father.
Despite any father-daughter drama, Voight still remains a proud grandfather.
“The kids are great. They’re growing up. They’re doing very well. It’s just amazing to have kids and watch them grow,” he exclusively told Us Weekly in March 2019. “You realize the preciousness of time and how short our lives are really. Kids don’t know that. When they’re young, they think life is endless and they’re always anxious to get to the next age.”
Keep scrolling to read about Jolie and Voight’s relationship in their own words:
June 2002
Jolie and Voight initially reconnected in 2001 when he played her onscreen father in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. While promoting the film, Jolie told USA Today, “If we weren’t related, we’d be friends. I like who he is.”
The next year, Jolie claimed in a Vogue profile that they were on the outs.
“My father would not be a good person to interview,” she said with a laugh. “God only knows what he’ll say. We don’t really speak that much anymore.”
In a separate conversation for the Vogue story, Voight acknowledged their “ins and outs.”
“Angie and I are a lot alike, and for whatever reason, we speak our piece,” he said. “We’re very passionate people, and we’ve had our ins and outs, but mostly there’s a lot of love between us.”
February 2010
Voight exclusively told Us that he had recently gone on vacation with Jolie, Pitt and their children.
“It’s nice to have something that’s positive,” he gushed. “It’s a very beautiful trip. A lot of fun. … I love the possibility of spending time with the family. It’s a very beautiful thing.”
Angelina Jolie would choose her family over fame in an instant. The actress, 49, said motherhood is “everything” to her during an interview with The Sunday Times, published on December 1. While discussing her starring role in Pablo Larraín’s Maria Callas biopic, Maria, Jolie insisted that she’s lucky enough to not be as lonely as […]
May 2013
Three years later, Voight told the New York Daily News that he had recently spent time with Jolie and Haven — but he was out of the loop about Jolie’s then-recent preventative double mastectomy.
“I saw her two days ago with my son Jamie. We all got together for his birthday, with her and Brad. But I didn’t know. It wasn’t obvious at all,” he said. “I found out [about her procedure on Tuesday] morning. I was as surprised as anyone and deeply moved by the way she’s handled this. She’s a very extraordinary person, the way she examined it and what she shared.”
At the time, a source confirmed to Us that only “very, very few [people] knew” about her mastectomy plans.
August 2014
Voight wasn’t present when Jolie and Pitt tied the knot, learning the news during a sit-down with Inside Edition.
“It seems like it was very nice, and with all of the kids involved, it must have been a lot of fun and very beautiful,” he told Us that same month. “I’m happy for them. … I didn’t know it was happening — it was Emmys week, so I wasn’t able to go.”
July 2017
By 2017, Jolie and Voight appeared to reconcile on the heels of her divorce from Pitt.
“He’s been very good at understanding [that my kids] needed their grandfather at this time,” she told Vanity Fair. “I had to do a therapy meeting last night and he was just around. He knows kind of the rule — don’t make them play with you. Just be a cool grandpa who’s creative, and hang out and tell stories and read a book in the library.”
Staying cautious. Angelina Jolie urged followers to take cancer screenings seriously while paying tribute to her late mother. “Tomorrow would have been my mother’s 73rd birthday,” the Maleficent actress, 47, captioned a polaroid photo of her and her mother via Instagram on Monday, May 8. “She passed away 15 years ago, after a long struggle […]
October 2019
Voight told Us that Jolie was a talented actress and he wanted them to share the big screen again.
“I like to be with my children working,” he said. “We haven’t found anything since Tomb Raider, but maybe we will.”
Voight also praised watching Jolie becoming a parent, adding, “She’s a really good, good mommy. Well, it’s the way she has to do it herself. It’s just how she lives her life. And she does! She’s very open.”
December 2023
Jolie opened up about her upbringing in a WSJ. Magazine feature.
“Because I grew up around Hollywood, I was never very impressed with it,” she confessed. “I never bought into it as significant or important.”
The Oscar winner further claimed that she often “wanted to escape” from the limelight throughout her early years in the spotlight amid mental health challenges.
June 2024
Jolie produced The Outsiders musical alongside daughter Vivienne. After the Broadway production won Best Musical at the Tony Awards, Voight shared his congratulations.
“I’m very proud of Vivienne. I’m really proud of Angie because she really tries to encourage each of the kids to be what they want to be,” he told TMZ. “It’s interesting because I just worked with Francis [Ford] Coppola on Megalopolis. During the filming of Megalopolis, I got a call from Angie and she said, ‘I’m doing Outsiders.’ Vivienne read the book and then went down to see this pre-Broadway version close to San Diego. She went down four times and said, ‘Mom, you’ve got to see this.’ Angie was very interested. It showed something of Vivienne she’d never seen before.”
July 2024
In a Variety profile, Voight confirmed his latest reconciliation with Jolie as he hinted that much of their estrangement revolved around differing political ideologies.
“She has been exposed to propaganda,” he claimed to the outlet. “She’s been influenced by antisemitic people. Angie has a connection to the U.N., and she’s enjoyed speaking out for refugees. But these people are not refugees.”
Jolie never publicly addressed her father’s comments, though a source told Variety that she “wishes [Voight] well.”
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