Three Jolie-Pitt Kids Now Legally Ditching Dad's Name

When a parent-child rift becomes official paperwork, you know something deeper is happening. Zahara Jolie-Pitt, 21, has filed a legal petition to drop Brad Pitt’s surname entirely, becoming the third of their six children to make this move through the court system. The petition was filed in April and processed on Friday, June 5, with a hearing scheduled for Monday, September 28, in Los Angeles.

What’s striking here isn’t the act itself — it’s the pattern. Zahara’s move follows similar legal filings from her siblings Shiloh and Maddox, both of whom petitioned to remove Pitt from their names in 2024 and May respectively. But this one carries extra weight because Zahara had already been publicly dropping the name for over a year. Back in May, during her Spelman College graduation, she walked across the stage announced as“Zahara Marley Jolie.”Three years before that, during her Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority initiation in 2023, she introduced herself the same way:“My name is Zahara Marley Jolie.”For Zahara, the legal filing appears to be formalizing what she’s already been doing on her own terms.

The timing matters too. Angelina Jolie filed for divorce from Brad Pitt on September 20, 2016, citing“irreconcilable differences.”Nearly a decade later, on December 30, 2024, their custody battle finally ended. The divorce settlement left Pitt with visitation rights for twins Knox and Vivienne, 17, who remain minors. But the adult children — Maddox, 24; Pax, 22; Zahara, 21; and Shiloh, 20 — are making their own choices about their identities, and those choices are increasingly public and legal.

An insider told Us Weekly that“the children are now adults and make their own decisions,”while another source offered sharper commentary:“It’s really horrible that he [Pitt] has tried to paint himself as a victim. When will people start asking real questions about what happened to the kids?”That quote hits at the heart of what’s happening here — this isn’t about a simple name change. It’s about a generational reckoning, playing out in courtrooms and at graduation ceremonies, where three adult children are systematically rejecting the paternal surname. Whether you see it as a statement about family fracture or personal autonomy, the legal record now speaks for itself.

The hearing in Los Angeles this September will finalize what Zahara has already claimed as her own.