Jolie's kids get Pitt's name
2006-01-20 08:18
Los Angeles - A US judge on Thursday granted pregnant Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie's request that her adopted children be allowed to take the name of her famous lover Brad Pitt.
The announcement, which indicates that Pitt intends to also adopt the youngsters, came a week after the famous pair confirmed they were expecting their first biological child together and amid reports that they are planning to wed soon.
Santa Monica superior Judge Linda Lefkowitz's decision means that four-year-old Maddox Jolie and one-year-old Zahara Jolie can now adopt the hyphenated surname Jolie-Pitt.
"I can just confirm that the court has granted Miss Jolie's name-change petition to change Zahara and Maddox's name to Zahara Jolie-Pitt and Maddox Jolie-Pitt," said the Lara Croft actress's attorney, Evan Spiegel.
Wedding bells
In court papers filed on December 2 as part of Jolie's name-change petition, Pitt, 42, is referred to as "the adoptive father-to-be" of each child. Neither Jolie nor Pitt were in court to hear the ruling.
When asked if the two planned to marry, Spiegel said he would "not comment on my clients' personal lives".
People magazine, however, on Thursday quoted unnamed sources close to Pitt as saying "the role of husband is likely to follow".
Pitt's publicist confirmed a week ago that Jolie was pregnant with the child of the heart-throb star of such films as Ocean's 11 and Fight Club.
It was the first formal confirmation that they are a couple, after a year of frenzied speculation about their relationship.
Jolie and Pitt reportedly began their relationship while co-starring as husband and wife assassins in last year's thriller Mr and Mrs Smith.
'Just good friends'
In October, Pitt divorced his equally-famous wife, Friends actress Jennifer Anniston, following a four-and-a-half-year marriage in which they became one of Tinseltown's most vaunted couples.
But Jolie and Pitt insisted they were just good friends, despite the publication photographs of them relaxing privately with her children.
The 30-year-old Jolie, the daughter of Oscar winner Jon Voight, has appeared in about 30 films and earned an Oscar for her supporting role in 2000's Girl, Interrupted. She now rates as one of the film industry's top actresses, earning $10m to $15m per film.
Both of her children are adopted. Maddox was adopted from Cambodia by Jolie and her then-husband Billy Bob Thornton, who split soon afterwards.
Jolie adopted Zahara herself from an Ethiopian orphanage last year.
A goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Jolie is now believed to be about four months pregnant by Pitt.
Earlier this week she was filming the The Good Shepherd in the Dominican Republic, where she reportedly fell and suffered a minor cut on her head.