Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are two of the biggest stars on the planet. And when the two got together, they created a power couple for the ages, and the Jennifer Aniston stans have never gotten over it.
Brangelina spent 12 years together as the biggest couple on the planet before Jolie filed for divorce in 2016 after two years of marriage. One of the biggest issues in their bitter divorce battle involves their six children, who are celebrities in their own right.
The former couple has three adopted children (Maddox, 20, Pax, 18, Zahara, 16) and three biological children (Shiloh, 15, and twins Vivienne and Knox, 13). But none have made quite a splash on the world as Shiloh Jolie-Pitt.
Assigned female at birth, Shiloh has not announced their gender identity or pronoun preference, but has made waves for dressing as a boy as a child, and more recently shocking everyone by wearing dresses on the red carpet.
What’s the story behind Shiloh Jolie-Pitt? Keep reading to discover the answers!
Shiloh was born in Africa
You might imagine that the child of Hollywood royalty would be born close to Hollywood. Or maybe in some kind of exotic European vacation spot. However, Shiloh was actually born in Africa!
As the Associated Press reports, Jolie gave birth to Shiloh in Namibia, in large part due to her desire to avoid the paparazzi. To facilitate this, the hospital “put tight security around their hotel and the hospital, set up large green barriers to protect their privacy from photographers and refused to grant visas to any foreign journalists unless they had written permission from Jolie and Pitt to cover the birth.”
It worked, in large part due to local police arresting photographers and confiscating any film in their cameras. Because of this, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were able to show Shiloh to the world on their own terms: on the cover of the June 2006 issue of People magazine!
Shiloh preferred to go by ‘John’ as a child
Perhaps the most shocking thing about Shiloh Jolie-Pitt is that they refused to be called “Shiloh” as a child. Instead, Shiloh asked their parents to call them “John” for a while.
This came up when Pitt was helping to promote The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. As People reports, in 2008 Pitt said that Shiloh “only wants to be called John. John or Peter. So it’s a Peter Pan thing.” At the time, Shiloh was only about two and a half years old.
In 2010, Jolie clarified to The Daily Mail that while Shiloh “likes to dress like a boy,” the name John didn’t stick. “She wanted to be called ‘John’ for a while,” Jolie said.
That same year, Jolie told Us Weekly that Shiloh “wants to be a boy. So we had to cut her hair. She likes to wear boys’ everything. She thinks she’s one of the brothers.” This was apparent when Shiloh attended the premiere of Unbroken, Angelina Jolie’s film, wearing a suit and tie.
Shiloh takes after Angelina Jolie
Parents of children often wonder if their child’s personality will mirror one of the parents more than the others. And as far as Jolie is concerned, Shiloh takes after her in many respects.
This came up during a 2010 interview with Vanity Fair. During the interview, Jolie pointed out the ways that Shiloh reminder her of herself. “Goofy and verbal, the early signs of a performer,” Jolie said. “I used to get dressed up in costumes and jump around.”
At this point in the interview, Jolie got meditative about how she got “got closed off, darker” due to “the realities of certain things in life.” She had to rediscover those sparks of joy as an adult. Here’s hoping that Shiloh doesn’t undergo a similar dark period anytime soon. Perhaps the humanitarian trips Shiloh takes with Jolie can keep it at bay.
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The Brad Pitt resemblance is very apparent
When it comes to taking after parents, there are two kinds of resemblances: personality and looks. Jolie is pretty sure that Shiloh shares her personality. But to the rest of the world, it’s clear that Shiloh more closely resembles Brad Pitt.
In fact, the resemblance to Pitt is so strong that even Jolie admits it. As the Daily Mail reports, she allegedly once said that “[Shiloh] looks like Brad. It’s funny because she’s almost going to be the outcast in the family because she’s blonde and blue-eyed.”
We say “allegedly” because some internet sleuths think this quote is fake and that Jolie never said it. But between Shiloh’s strong genes and short hair, it would be difficult for anyone to deny this strong resemblance to Pitt’s handsome face.
Shiloh turned down a cameo in ‘Maleficent’
It’s not uncommon at all for children of Hollywood stars to pop up in their parents’ movies, even if it’s just a cameo. And when Angelina Jolie made Maleficent, that is what happened: cameo roles for her three children Vivienne, Zahara and Pax.
Why no Shiloh, though? To hear Jolie tell it, this all comes back down to Shiloh’s preference for male clothing. As she said in a 2014 interview with The Hot Hits, “We joked about Shiloh being the older Aurora, and she thought it was the most ridiculous thing in the world,” Jolie revealed. “She would never even wear a dress. She would never, ever.”
She went on to say, though, that Shiloh wanted to portray a male character that was not in the script or other Sleeping Beauty stories: a male warrior with a bow-and-arrow named Marcus. So rather than permanently saying no to Hollywood, maybe Shiloh is just waiting for the right role to come along.
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Shiloh is friends with Millie Bobby Brown
In many respects, Shiloh is like any other kid, right down to enjoying silly purchases like an oversized teddy bear. But one thing that Shiloh can say and most other kids cannot is that they are friends with Stranger Things breakout star Millie Bobby Brown!
Back in February 2019, Shiloh and sister Zahara were out grabbing a quick bite to eat after 11 p.m with Millie Bobby Brown. Interestingly, this brought up some real mixed feelings in Brad Pitt. According to Hollywood Life, a source claimed that “Shiloh and Zahara’s night out with Millie Bobby Brown brought up mixed emotions for Brad” and that Pitt was “happy that they’re making friends and having fun” and even “accepts that they’re both building their social lives and finding their independence … he’s also a very protective dad so it is hard for him to see his babies growing up.”
As for Millie Bobby Brown, we can only imagine her parents are happy that a celebrity a bit younger than Drake is wanting to hang out with her!
Shiloh has started wearing Jolie’s dresses on the red carpet
Despite Jolie saying in 2014 that Shiloh would “never, ever” wear a dress, Shiloh turned heads in October 2021 for doing just that! Now 15, Shiloh has started exploring more traditionally feminine hairstyles and clothes, including dresses that used to belong to Jolie.
At the Los Angeles premiere of Jolie’s film Eternals, Shiloh wore a tailored version of a Gabriela Hearst poplin slip Jolie had worn months earlier. Then, a week later at the London premiere of the film, Shiloh wore a shortened version of black-and-white Dior gown Jolie had worn at a press conference in 2019. Shiloh has also grown their hair out and started wearing it in buns.
Still, just because Shiloh is wearing dresses now doesn’t mean their tomboy style has gone away completely. At the Rome premiere of Eternals, Shiloh paired a black Versace gown with yellow-and-black sneakers.
Like Jolie, it seems Shiloh will continue to make bold fashion statements, and we are here for it!