‘Hurt’: Another blow for Brad Pitt as daughter tries to ditch famous surname

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s daughter Vivienne is one step closer to officially removing her famous father’s surname from her legal name.

The 18-year-old has officially published a legal notice revealing her intention to change her name from Vivienne Marcheline Jolie-Pitt to Vivienne Marcheline Jolie, according to court documents obtained by People.

The notice appeared in the Los Angeles Daily Journal on four dates between July 24 and August 14, which fulfils a requirement under California’s legal name change process.

The news comes one month after Vivienne filed a petition with the Los Angeles County Superior Court to legally drop “Pitt” from her surname, listing the reason behind the decision simply as “personal”.

The change has not yet been approved as there has been a court hearing scheduled for November 2.

Vivienne has spent years publicly using her mother Angelina Jolie’s surname without Pitt’s.

In May 2024, she was credited as simply Vivienne Jolie in the Playbill for the Broadway show The Outsiders, which she produced alongside her mother.

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Vivienne is not the only one of Jolie and Pitt’s six children to distance themselves from their father’s surname.

Shiloh, 20, was granted her petition to drop Pitt from her name in 2024. Maddox, 24, and Zahara, 21, are in the process, with hearings scheduled for September.

Shiloh successfully changed her legal name from Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt to Shiloh Nouvel Jolie after filing the request on her 18th birthday.

Vivienne’s twin brother Knox has not filed a legal petition, but was reportedly named as “Knox Jolie” on his high school diploma when he graduated earlier this year.

Known as “Brangelina” during their time together, Jolie and Pitt met in 2004 on the set of the film Mr. & Mrs. Smith and share Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh and twins Knox and Vivienne.

Jolie filed for divorce in 2016 following an alleged altercation aboard a private jet, with their bitter legal battle stretching on for more than eight years before the divorce was finalised in December 2024.

Pitt is now reportedly estranged from his children, with a source close to the actor previously telling People the decisions to drop his surname were an “incredibly sad reality”, alleging they were the result of a “prolonged campaign of alienation”.

The actor is said to be “hurt” by his children’s decisions to drop his last name, with a source telling Us Weekly the news was “very difficult.”

“[Brad’s] biggest fear is to be permanently disconnected from the kids because he does want to find a way to make things right,” the insider said.

“His biggest fear is that too much time is going by and the more time without something happening, the harder it will be to reconcile.”

In the years since the couple’s divorce, details have emerged about their family life.

Pax, whom Jolie adopted in 2007 from Vietnam before Pitt formally adopted him a year later, was the first to speak out.

Taking to social media in 2020, he wrote a scorching post on Instagram to mark Father’s Day in the US, in which he referred to Pitt as a “world-class a---hole” and a “despicable human being”.

He also claimed Pitt’s four youngest children “tremble in fear when in your presence”.

In a 2017 interview with GQ, Pitt said the divorce forced him to reflect on the kind of father he wanted to be.

“I have to be more for them. I have to show them,” he said at the time.

“And I haven’t been great at it.”