While his siblings have been steadily erasing the Pitt name from their lives, 22-year-old Pax Jolie-Pitt has been quietly doing something quite different — showing up for his father's family. The eldest son of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt recently attended a celebratory dinner with his paternal relatives to mark his cousin Sydney's engagement, joining Brad's sister Julie Pitt Neal, his niece Reagan Pitt, and a circle of extended family. Sydney announced the news herself in March, posting on Instagram with a characteristically breezy caption: "I said yes (duh)."
It's a warmer picture of the Jolie-Pitt family dynamic than most headlines tend to paint — though the full story, as ever, is a little more complicated.
Close to the Family, Distant From the Man
According to sources speaking exclusively to Page Six, Pax's relationship with Brad Pitt's relatives is genuine and ongoing — but his connection to Brad himself is another matter entirely.
"Pax still has a relationship with his dad's side of the family and continues to spend time with them," one insider said, while a separate source noted that he "doesn't have much of a relationship with Brad."
Representatives for both Jolie and Pitt declined to comment. But the distinction Pax appears to have drawn — staying loyal to the extended family while remaining estranged from his father — reflects a nuanced position that none of his siblings seem to share. Where Pax is turning up at engagement dinners with paternal aunts and cousins, the rest of the Jolie-Pitt children have been moving in the opposite direction entirely.
A Surname Being Shed, One Sibling at a Time
The legal paperwork has been piling up. Sister Shiloh, now 20, was the first to make it official — she successfully petitioned a Los Angeles court in May 2024 to remove Pitt from her surname after turning 18. Knox, who turns 18 on 12th July, had already used "Knox Jolie" on his high school diploma from Fusion Academy in Los Angeles. Zahara, 21, has since filed to become Zahara Jolie legally. Most recently, eldest sibling Maddox, 24, filed his own paperwork to drop the Pitt name, having already adopted "Maddox Jolie" professionally — including in credits for the film Couture, on which he worked as assistant director alongside his mother.
The pattern is striking. Four of the six Jolie-Pitt children have now taken formal steps to distance themselves from their father's name, citing personal reasons in court documents. Brad Pitt finalised his divorce from Angelina in December 2024, bringing to a close more than eight years of legal proceedings after she filed to dissolve their marriage in September 2016.
Pax Steps Out With Angelina and Shiloh
Away from the courtrooms and the cousin engagement dinners, Pax has also been spotted keeping close to his mother's world. He recently joined Angelina and Shiloh at the Supper+Feed Pickleball Invitational and Game Night in Los Angeles — a charity event where mother and son were seen competing on court together in good spirits.
It's a portrait of a young man threading a careful path through one of Hollywood's most publicly fractured family stories. Pax, it seems, has decided that estrangement from his father doesn't have to mean estrangement from everyone who shares his blood. Whether that balance holds as the legal name changes continue around him remains to be seen.
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