Angelina Jolie’s son Maddox’s request to officially drop his father Brad Pitt’s last name has been approved.
According to court documents obtained by Us, a judge granted Maddox’s name change request on Monday, September 14. His moniker was altered from Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt to Maddox Chivan Jolie.
The docs stated that there were “no objections” to Maddox’s name change request.
TMZ was first to report the news.
Earlier this year, Maddox, 24, raised eyebrows when he dropped Pitt’s name professionally. Maddox was listed in the credits of the movie Couture, which stars his mother, as “Maddox Jolie” in February. Maddox served as an assistant director on the drama.
Three months later, Maddox took action to legally remove his father’s surname, per docs obtained by Us.
Maddox is one of Jolie and Pitt’s six children. The actress, 51, adopted Maddox prior to meeting Pitt, 62, but the actor later became his legal father. The exes, who were married from 2014 to 2019, also share son Pax, 22, daughters Zahara, 21 and Shiloh, 20, as well as 18-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox.
Maddox is not the only one of his siblings who has dropped his father’s last name. Vivienne was credited as Vivienne Jolie in the Playbill for her work on Broadway’s The Outsiders in May 2024. The following month, Zahara publicly stated her name was Zahara Marley Jolie when she introduced herself as a new member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
Shiloh, for her part, was the first of Pitt and Jolie’s children to take legal steps to drop her dad’s last name. On her 18th birthday, Shiloh filed her request to drop Pitt’s surname. A source told Us in June 2024 that Shiloh “hired her own lawyer and paid for it herself.” The request was granted that same year.
Both Zahara and Vivienne have since legally requested to change their last names as well, though neither is official yet.
Four of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s six children have taken steps to remove “Pitt” from their names. After Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt in September 2016 citing “irreconcilable differences,” Maddox, Zahara, Shiloh and Vivienne have each distanced themselves — publicly or legally — from their famous father by changing their last names. (Jolie […]
An insider told Us earlier this year that Pitt “feels most hurt out of everything that happened with Angie that his children don’t want a public association with his last name. It’s been very difficult.”
Earlier this year, certified family law specialist and senior attorney Rachael Bennett gave Us insight about the process of legally changing a name.
“For an adult changing your last name, it’s actually pretty straightforward, but it does require a formal court order to change your name,” Bennett explained. “The process is pretty simple. The court’s going to set a hearing date and in many cases, the person may have to publish a public notice of the proposed name change in a local newspaper. The judge is going to decide, yes, there’s an improper purpose, or no, there’s no improper purpose, and then if everything’s green lit, the judge just signs off on the petition, and the name change is granted.”
