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Who is Maddox? Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt's son files petition to drop 'Pitt' from his surname
Maddox, the child of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, has filed a petition to formally eliminate Pitt from his last name, according to a recent report by PEOPLE.
Maddox, the son of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, has submitted a request to officially remove Pitt from his surname, as per a new report from PEOPLE.
The 24-year-old has filed legal documents seeking a name change, according to TMZ on Thursday, May 28. This alteration would eliminate "Pitt" from his last name, resulting in his full name being Maddox Chivan Jolie.
As of now, the request has not yet been approved, according to the outlet.
A spokesperson for Pitt informed PEOPLE that they would refrain from commenting on the matter.
What we know about Maddox's petition for name change
Maddox's application for a name change follows shortly after he removed Pitt from his surname in the credits of his mother’s recent film, Couture.
He worked as an assistant director on the drama, which featured Angelina, 50, portraying an American film director who is diagnosed with breast cancer just as she arrives in France to create a video for Paris Fashion Week.
The film made its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September 2025, subsequently releasing in French cinemas on February 18.
At that time, PEOPLE confirmed that Maddox was credited as Maddox Jolie in the film's end credits, and the production notes distributed to journalists at TIFF also referred to him as Maddox Jolie.
This represented a shift from Maddox’s earlier film credit for Maria, the 2024 drama featuring his mother as the renowned opera singer Maria Callas. In the Netflix production, Maddox served as a production assistant and was credited under the name Maddox Jolie-Pitt.
Who is Maddox?
Maddox is the oldest of Jolie and Pitt’s six children, with the former couple, who separated in 2016, also having Pax, 22, Zahara, 21, Shiloh, 20, and 17-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne.
The 24-year-old, who was adopted by Jolie in 2002, is not the first among his siblings to separate himself from the Pitt name.
In the May 2024 edition of Playbill for The Outsiders, the Broadway musical that Vivienne assisted her mother in producing, she was listed as Vivienne Jolie, rather than Vivienne Jolie-Pitt.
Zahara drops father's last name
A few months later, in August 2024, Essence shared a video featuring Zahara as she introduced herself as a member of Alpha Kappa Mu Pi at Spelman College.
Zahara chose to omit her father's surname when she graduated from college on May 17, 2026. Although the commencement program listed her as Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt, her name was announced as "Zahara Marley Jolie" while she walked across the stage.
In August 2024, PEOPLE confirmed that Shiloh, originally named Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, had legally altered her name to Shiloh Jolie. Shiloh submitted her request to change her surname on May 27 of that year, coinciding with her 18th birthday.
