Angelina Jolie considers her six kids to be her closest friends: 'We're seven very different people'

Angelina Jolie is one of the most celebrated actresses in Hollywood. With her being a notable celebrity, her six kids have grown up under a lot of media scrutiny and limelight. Even though the 48-year-old hardly brings up her kids in interviews or dishes out their personal lives, she couldn't help but admit how proud she is as their mother. Talking to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ Magazine), the Oscar-winning actress, director and philanthropist revealed how she "really doesn't have a social life," but she keeps a close bond with her kids.

Jolie became a mom to her biological twins Knox and Vivienne, 15 and daughter Shiloh, 17, with her ex-husband Brad Pitt. The former couple had also adopted a daughter, Zahara, 18 and sons Pax, 20 and Maddox, 22. "They are the closest people to me and my life and they're my close friends," she told the outlet. "We're seven very different people, which is our strength." She also spoke about how she raised them to experience a life without the threat of paparazzi following them as young kids.

"You kind of step out when there are times you would have liked to have been there," she further explained. Jolie told Vogue in September that her children "saved" her. "I was 26 when I became a mother," she said. "My entire life changed. Having children saved me—and taught me to be in this world differently. I think, recently, I would've gone under in a much darker way had I not wanted to live for them."

"They're better than me because you want your children to be," Jolie continued. "Of course, I'm the mother and hopefully that safe place for them and that stability. But I'm also the one that they laugh at—and I see them taking over so many different aspects of our family." Jolie's 2021 interview with PEOPLE is where she opened up even more about how the kindness of her kids healed her.

"They're pretty great people and because there's so many of them, I think they've had a very significant effect on each other. It's not like I'm the head of anything. I'm very honest with my kids. And I'm very human with my kids. I have six very individual human beings in my home," she told the outlet. "I am so excited about all the different stages, feelings and curiosities they go through. Why wouldn't you be? We're supposed to help them figure out who they are. And you can't figure out who they are if you don't enthusiastically develop with them."

According to Harper's Bazaar, Jolie's oldest daughter Zahara was recently in the news for joining the first historically Black sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, at Spelman College. She has been studying in the Atlanta-based liberal arts school since 2022. However, the 18-year-old attracted media attention for her speech during the induction ceremony, where she notably skipped mentioning her famous father's surname. "My name is Zahara Marley Jolie!" she said and continued with a lively induction speech and dance performance later on.

Zahara's apparent rejection of her father's name comes after years of speculation that the actor has remained estranged from his six children since his divorce from Jolie in 2016. Jolie filed for divorce after their two years of marriage and Pitt was getting investigated on the accounts of child abuse in connection with an argument he had with son Maddox on a plane. The details of the case were never made public, but Jolie declined Pitt's request for joint custody of the children and the two have been locked in a bitter legal battle ever since.