Angelina Jolie was asked about her close friendships. She paused, and then talked about her betrayals.

It's been a while since we've heard from Angelina Jolie — both on and off the screen — following several turbulent years and allegations of abuse at the hands of former husband, fellow actor, Brad Pitt. 

After years away from Hollywood, Jolie is set to make a triumphant return to with the biopic, Maria, playing the staring role of opera singer Maria Callas.

While promoting the film at the Venice Film Festival, Jolie did a revealing interview with The Hollywood Reporter. There was one response from the actor that stood out the most.

She was asked about her closest friends, and who the person is that she would call at 3am in the morning.

"I don't really have those kinds of relationships," she frankly said. "Maybe it's losing your parent young. Maybe it's working. Maybe it's being somebody who's been betrayed a lot. I don't have a lot of those warm, close relationships as much that I lean on."

Jolie continued: "My mother was very close to me. I lost her. I've had a few friends over the years not be there for my family in their hour of need. I have a couple of people that I trust."

Angelina Jolie at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, also attended by her ex-husband, Brad Pitt. Image: Getty.

It's not the first time Jolie has talked about her lack of close female friendships. 

In a Vogue interview last year, the actor said: "I'm not really somebody that has girlfriends."

Jolie's admission that she's not "somebody that has girlfriends," is something rarely shared by women, let alone very, very famous women. But this revelation is not that surprising. 

Angelina Jolie's enduring anti-women legacy. 

Unlike other Hollywood women, or more specifically her tabloid nemesis Jennifer Aniston, Jolie's friendships are rarely portrayed in the media. Instead she is typically seen on her own, or alongside her children. 

By contrast, someone like Aniston is known for her female friendships with fellow celebrities like Courtney Cox and Reese Witherspoon. 

Jolie being considered a lone wolf and Aniston as a 'girl's girl' is a trope that goes back decades. Of course, no one needs to be reminded that Aniston was married to Pitt when he met Jolie on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith in 2004. 

But this followed another situation where Jolie was portrayed as a 'man stealer'. 

In 1999, Laura Dern was engaged to and living with Billy Bob Thornton when suddenly he started a relationship with Jolie. "I left our home to work on a movie, and while I was away, my boyfriend got married, and I've never heard from him again," Dern told Talk magazine in 2000.

Like Aniston, Dern is commonly depicted as a girl's girl — she's even part of Jennifer, Reese, and Courtney's girl gang, with the foursome spotted together on holidays, at parties, and (most importantly) on Instagram. 

The real Angelina Jolie. 

But is this depiction of Jolie as some friendless loner, who preys on taken men at odds with the actor and activist in recent years? 

It's been reported that Jolie and Gwen Stefani have been friends for decades. In 2021, it was reported that she had struck up a friendship with Grey's Anatomy actor Ellen Pompeo, as they both lived in the Los Feliz area of California. 

And in 2023, Salma Hayek opened up about her long-standing friendship with Jolie. "She's been very, very enriching in my life, in so many ways — as mothers, you know," she said. 

"And it's just natural. It's just something that flows."

Jolie may have female friends and acquaintances — but no actual girlfriends — and this is something that shouldn't tarnish her character, or paint her as 'anti-women'. 

Making friends is hard. And keeping them can be harder, especially as the years tick by.  

For some reason, women who have a lot of girlfriends are upheld as supreme members of the sisterhood.

There's no doubt that some female friendships can be a blessing, but sometimes not having close women as friends can be a more nuanced consequence of being more introverted, losing touch with older friendships formed in younger years, or simply being someone who prefers their own company (also cats can be incredible company too). 

In the case of Jolie, she's spent the past eight years in a bitter custody battle with her ex-husband, Pitt. Jolie filed for divorce in 2016, and what followed was years of legal troubles, including Angelina accusing Brad of an incident on a plane where he physically abused her and their children, before Brad sued his ex for selling a winery they shared. 

The latter legal battle is still ongoing between the ex-partners. 

What Angelina Jolie has said before about friendship. 

When she was still married to Pitt, she also revealed she didn't have many friends. 

"I'm just not very social," she told Marie Claire in 2011. "I'll talk to my family. I talk to Brad... But I don't know, I don't have a lot of friends I talk to. He is really the only person I talk to." 

Years after the divorce, Jolie said she spends most of her time with her six children: Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Vivienne, and Knox. 

"I never expect to be the one that everybody understands or likes. And that's okay, because I know who I am, and the kids know who I am," she said in a 2017 interview with the New York Times. 

"We're really such a unit. They're the best friends I've ever had. Nobody in my life has ever stood by me more."

This article was originally published in September 2023, and has since been updated with new information.

Feature Image: Getty.