It feels notable that Brad Pitt’s pushback only really started after Shiloh filed to remove “Pitt” from her legal name on her 18th birthday. Notice what’s not being said – absolutely no one is claiming that Brad reached out to Shiloh on her birthday or tried to see her or send her flowers or anything like that. Notice that Brad did not run around to People Magazine, Us Weekly and Entertainment Tonight with “his side” of things when Zahara started going by “Zahara Jolie” at Spelman. Notice that Brad didn’t even say anything when 15-year-old Vivienne erased “Pitt” from her name on The Outsiders’ playbill, for which she is a credited producer’s assistant. Shiloh’s decision to actually hire a lawyer and file for a name change on her 18th birthday was a bigger statement, granted. But it also feels like Brad has just realized that he can’t continue to play the same old “Angelina alienated the kids against me.” Any of the kids could speak up at any time. Dangerous days for Brad Pitt. That being said, he’s still an idiot and clearly some people will always believe that the Villainous Jolie made Poor Brad be a drunken psycho. Speaking of:

Brad Pitt remains hopeful about reconnecting with his kids.

“After years of legal battles, Brad still isn’t ready to give up on his children,” a source exclusively tells Us Weekly. “But knowing his children are dropping his last name is upsetting.”

The name changes come after Pitt’s security guard, Tony Webb, claimed that Jolie encouraged their children to ice out the actor during custody visits. Per court docs obtained by Us earlier this month, Webb alleged that a former employee, Ross Foster, told him “about statements he overheard that Ms. Jolie made to the children, encouraging them to avoid spending time with Mr. Pitt during custody visits.”

Pitt and Jolie were together for a decade before they exchanged vows in August 2014. Two years later, the pair called it quits and have been in a long-standing legal battle ever since. In 2019, Pitt and Jolie were declared legally single. They have yet to come to an agreement regarding their divorce or the custody of their minor children and ownership over their French winery, Chateau Miraval.

However, in March, an insider told Us that their legal battle could reach its end soon — with Jolie receiving primary custody of her and Pitt’s twins, their only underage children. Pitt, for his part, “isn’t thrilled” with the arrangement but agreed to it.

“He wishes their relationship was stronger and wants to work on that,” the source said, adding that Pitt is disappointed he “doesn’t see the kids” as often as he’d like to.

[From Us Weekly]

A guy heard from another guy that Angelina told her kids to avoid spending time with Brad when they were visiting him? Sounds legit. As soon as the kids aged out of court-ordered visitation, all of them avoided Brad. There was still a court-ordered monitor in place for YEARS during Brad’s rare visitation with the kids too. Besides which… all of this is just sound and fury from Team Pitt, signifying a whole lot of nothing. Notice that too – there’s no plan to actually reconcile with his kids, there’s no plan to show his kids that he’s made substantive changes, that he’s a better person now. He’s made no “amends.” It’s basically just Brad calling up his media buddies and crying about how “he isn’t ready to give up” and the whole thing is just a big bummer.

Also: Entertainment Tonight has a source who claims that Vivienne was the one to personally request that “Pitt” not be included in her name in The Outsiders’ playbill. Just aesthetically, “Vivienne Jolie” sounds prettier than “Vivienne Jolie-Pitt.”

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Backgrid.