Court filings submitted July 9 confirm that Zahara Jolie-Pitt has satisfied California’s publication requirement in her legal bid to drop Pitt from her surname. The 21-year-old daughter of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt is seeking to become Zahara Marley Jolie, with a hearing scheduled for September 28.
Zahara signed the petition April 28 and submitted it June 4 to Los Angeles County Superior Court. The Spelman College graduate, who earned a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and walked at commencement May 17, was already introduced as Zahara Marley Jolie when she received her diploma.
State law mandates that anyone pursuing a name change must publish notice in a local newspaper of general circulation for four consecutive weeks, allowing the public an opportunity to object. Zahara’s petition appeared in the Los Angeles Daily Journal on June 16, June 23, June 30 and July 7. Written objections to the change must be filed before the final hearing.
A Pattern Among the Siblings
Zahara joins several of her siblings who have distanced themselves from the Pitt surname. Shiloh Jolie published a legal notice in 2024 before officially dropping the name. Maddox Jolie-Pitt, 24, and Vivienne Jolie-Pitt have also stopped using it publicly in recent years. Pax Jolie-Pitt, 22, rounds out the children who came of age amid one of Hollywood’s most watched breakups.
The proof of publication document reached the court just days before her youngest siblings, twins Knox and Vivienne, turned 18. That milestone matters beyond the paperwork, because it loosens ties that have kept the household anchored to California for years.
A Family Shaped by a Long Divorce
Jolie and Pitt’s divorce, filed in 2016, stretched eight years before finalizing in 2024. Pitt secured joint custody in 2021, nearly five years into the case, but the ruling was overturned when the presiding judge was removed. The arrangement reverted to a 2018 decision granting Jolie primary physical custody while Pitt retained custodial time and visitation rights over the minor children.
Those visitation rights have kept Jolie tethered to Los Angeles, requiring her to maintain a residence in the state. In a 2024 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she acknowledged that the divorce keeps her anchored in the city but said she expects to leave once all her children turn 18, seeking privacy, peace and safety for her big family. She plans to spend significant time in Cambodia, where her son Maddox was born.
Jolie adopted Maddox, born Aug. 5, 2001, in Battambang, Cambodia, as a single 26-year-old mother. Pitt began adoption proceedings after the couple started dating. Maddox later served as executive producer on Jolie’s 2017 film First They Killed My Father, studied biochemistry at South Korea’s Yonsei University, and attended a state dinner at the White House in April 2023.
Pax, born Nov. 29, 2003, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, spent three-and-a-half years in an orphanage in one room with 20 other children before the family brought him home. He voiced the character Yoo in Kung Fu Panda 3 in 2016.
Jolie adopted Zahara from Ethiopia in 2005. In a 2020 interview, she described Zahara as an extraordinary African woman whose connection to her home continent she stands back and admires.
Representatives for both Jolie and Pitt did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A source close to Pitt characterized the move as part of a broader estrangement, saying Angelina has caused a rift between Brad and the children in what the source called a campaign to alienate them from their father.
In a June 17 interview, Jolie credited her older children for helping restore her fighting spirit after a difficult period. If the judge approves the petition in September, Zahara will become the latest of Pitt’s children to officially shed the surname.
