‘She wants to get away from the drama’

Angelina Jolie is leaving Hollywood to start her next chapter — likely outside of the US, sources tell Page Six. 

The 50-year-old actress, director and humanitarian has put the historic $25 million Cecil B. DeMille estate where she has lived in since 2016 on the market and has quietly been showing potential buyers around, a source told People this week.

In 2026, the “Maria” star will split time between New York, where she has her fashion collective and boutique, Atelier Jolie, and Europe “for more privacy” as well as her long-time second home, Cambodia, where she is a citizen, sources told Page Six.

“She can’t get far enough away from the drama … the only way to take a break is to get out,” Jae Benjamin, an actor and producer whose association with Jolie goes back to 2005.

“She’ll go and decompress – only working on things that drive her heart, soul and passion. She’s a wonderful, talented and giving woman,” Benjamin added. 

The drama for Angelina mostly relates to her bitter split from ex-husband Brad Pitt, 62, whom she reached a final divorce settlement with on Dec. 30, 2024. That was eight years after she filed for divorce from him, and amid a litany of legal battles which have followed.

Indeed, Jolie has previously expressed her desire to leave La La Land, noting she was only tied to Los Angeles until all of her six children with Brad turned 18, which will happen in July on the birthday of their twins, Knox and Vivienne.

The couple are also parents to Maddox, 24, who was born in Cambodia; Pax, 22, born in Vietnam; Zahara, 20, born in Ethiopia; and Shiloh, 19.

In 2024, Jolie told The Hollywood Reporter: “I am here because I have to be here from a divorce, but as soon as they’re 18, I’ll be able to leave.”

In another 2021 interview she said the main reason she bought her Los Angeles estate was “I wanted it to be close to their dad, who is only five minutes away,” and who shares custody of the kids.

Jolie split from Pitt in 2016 after an incident on their private plane flying back to the US from France. Jolie accused Pitt, who later admitted he was intoxicated, of injuring her and verbally abusing their children. The FBI investigated the incident, but declined to file any charges against Pitt.

Jolie has since been the primary carer for all the children, some of whom have since chosen to drop “Pitt” from their surnames. Shiloh even take legal steps to drop Pitt from her last name the day she turned 18 in 2024. 

A rep for Pitt declined to comment. A rep for Jolie did not return a request for comment.

“Being through what she’s been through with Brad, having their whole life being in the limelight and all the years of it … the only way to take a break is to get out.

“It’s hard to be in a town where you can’t even turn your head and see someone you don’t know,” Benjamin added to Page Six.

While both Pitt and Jolie have gone on to great success in their careers since the split, but insiders noted Pitt’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar win for “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood” in 2020 was widely seen as the city embracing him following the end of his marriage.

Jolie had her own Oscar-tipped lead role in the 2024 biopic “Maria,” about singer Maria Callas, for which she learned to sing opera, but it was snubbed at awards season leaving her “devastated,” Page Six reported at the time.  

Los Angeles is also associated with a darker part of Jolie’s life when she cared for her late mother, Marcheline Bertrand, during her decade-long batter with ovarian and breast cancer before she passed away in 2007 at 56.

Jolie has long seen herself as more of a global citizen with aspirations outside of Los Angeles, where she was born.

Following filming in Cambodia for her breakout role in “Tomb Raider” in 2001, Jolie became a champion of the country, establishing a charity and becoming interested in humanitarian work.

She revealed in 2023 in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, she longed to spend “a lot of time in Cambodia,” in the future and aspired to live a more private life.

“I wouldn’t be an actress today,” Jolie told The Journal, explaining: “When I was starting out, it wasn’t as much of an expectation to be as public, to share so much.”

Jolie also long worked with the United Nations, eventually becoming a Special Envoy for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and visiting war-torn places like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Although she no longer works for the UN, on Friday, Jolie visited the Egyptian side of Rafah and made her way into Gaza with an American delegate, meeting with aid drivers. She also met with injured Palestinians getting care in Egypt and spoke with patients in a hospital in the nearby city of Arish, The Associated Press reported.

There have also long been rumors Jolie wanted to relocate to London, with a report of her house hunting there as recently as September, while there to film movie “Anxious People.”

There’s also she and Pitt’s much-fought-over Château Miraval in the south of France, the winery they purchased in 2011 for an estimated $60 million.

Angelina has been trying to sell her half of the business to a third party for years, but the deal has been held up in court as Pitt objects to it.

An entertainment source noted to Page Six Friday: “Leaving LA does not end that lawsuit.”

Other sources also expect Jolie to move out of the US, with one saying they believe she could spend a lot more time with her close friend Salma Hayek and her husband François-Henri Pinault, who split their time between Paris, London and the US.

Jeff Krauss, president of IE Group, a celebrity event producer known for hosting exclusive celebrity dinner parties and charity galas told Page Six of Jolie: “It doesn’t seem like she wants to be [in LA] full time as her children are becoming adults.

“More celebrities, especially that have kids, move abroad because of the better schooling, privacy — privacy from paparazzi … and if you want to evolve into a more private life … overseas seems to be the way to go.” 

Meanwhile Pitt is more committed to Hollywood than ever. His Plan B Entertainment production company has been behind big hits in recent years including movies “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” “Nickel Boys” and TV shows “Adolescence” and “3 Body Problem” and Pitt has had great success starring in the drama movie “F1” about formula one racing.

While Angelina remains single, Pitt has been dating health coach Ines de Ramon since 2022.

“Ines is keeping him in the game after doing the ‘F1’ movie,” Benjamin said.

“Now with Ines, there’s only so much room in one town. Brad’s not leaving. She [Jolie] had to make a decision.”

Whereas Jolie seems less focused on blockbusters and more interested in following her creative muse.

As she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2024: “There are some bigger directing projects that would take longer that I haven’t been able to do. The one sitting at my desk now, a big epic that’s on my mind, the wonderful story of [photojournalist] Don McCullin…  I would love to spend time and trace his steps … I also still want to play a villain.”