On Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, a Los Angeles judge granted the petition of Zahara, 21, the daughter of actors Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, allowing her to legally change her name from Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt to Zahara Marley Jolie. The ruling makes her the latest of the couple’s six children to shed their father’s surname in court.
Judge Virginia Keeny heard the case at the Los Angeles Superior Court’s Stanley Mosk Courthouse. Peter Kenneth Levine, the attorney representing Zahara, took part in the morning hearing by remote appearance. No one appeared to oppose the petition, and no written objection had been filed. Keeny signed and filed the decree the same day.
“There being no objections, the petition for change of name is granted,” the Sept. 28 minute order said.
As of Sept. 30, a person close to Brad Pitt described the family rift. “The divorce from Angelina was bad but the alienation from his children was the worst thing that ever happened to him,” the person said. Another person close to Pitt, cited by Closer, said he had moved from “hurt and pain to acceptance” and believed the family needed to move beyond the hostility surrounding the breakup.
What the Court File Shows
Court documents show Zahara filed her name-change petition June 4 in Los Angeles. California law required advertising the request. The Los Angeles Daily Journal carried notices of the proposed change on four dates: June 16, June 23, June 30 and July 7.
Objectors had a window, opened by each notice, in which to submit a written challenge before the hearing. None was filed. Reporters picked up those advertisements more than two months before the ruling, when it emerged that Zahara and her brother Maddox had each taken out newspaper notices announcing their intention to drop “Pitt.”
Sources on Both Sides
The ruling amounted to one more chapter in what a source close to Pitt characterized as complete and total alienation, that source said, framing it as an attempt to draw attention away from the actor’s professional success. That source said that over the past decade only one side of the family has publicly discussed the children or tried to use them as leverage.
Pushback came from a source close to Jolie, who said Pitt’s camp had hit a new low by floating a conspiracy theory, refusing responsibility for his conduct and targeting his own daughter. That source said Zahara has declined to air the details of his behavior publicly. “Today’s hearing was required by law and scheduled months ago by the L.A. court system,” the source close to Jolie said.
Siblings Who Went First
Shiloh, 20, was the first sibling to make the change legally. She filed a petition shortly after turning 18 in May 2024 and won approval later that year. Maddox, 25, submitted his petition in May, and a Los Angeles judge signed off Sept. 14, so that Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt became, in legal terms, Maddox Chivan Jolie.
Vivienne, 18, has petitioned to become Vivienne Marcheline Jolie, with a hearing scheduled for Nov. 2. The Playbill for the Broadway production of “The Outsiders” credited her as Vivienne Jolie before she filed her petition. Her case remains pending, according to online court records viewed by USA TODAY as of Sept. 29.
Knox, Vivienne’s twin, left his father’s surname off his high school diploma, and as of Sept. 30 he is reported to have graduated high school using “Knox Jolie.” Pax is reported to still use the Jolie-Pitt surname publicly, the only one of the six siblings described as doing so.
The court documents contain the only stated reasons; none of the siblings has publicly elaborated beyond them. Each of them held off until reaching the age that allowed the filing to be made independently.
Two Decades of a Name
Zahara was born in Ethiopia in January 2005, and Jolie adopted her later that year. A California judge signed off in January 2006 on a change from Zahara Marley to Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt, the step that accompanied Pitt’s formal adoption of her. Twenty years on, a different California judge undid it.
Zahara had already used the shorter name in public. Spelman College in Atlanta presented her as Zahara Marley Jolie in May as she accepted the diploma marking her Bachelor of Arts in psychology. Her listing in the official commencement program, though, still read Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt. She had introduced herself the same way in November 2023, during her induction into Spelman’s Mu Pi chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha.
Jolie filed for divorce in 2016 following a private-plane incident involving the family that became the subject of investigations. The couple spent years litigating the split before reaching a settlement in 2024. In 2002, Jolie legally dropped “Voight” from her name, changing it from Angelina Jolie Voight to Angelina Jolie after becoming estranged from her father, actor Jon Voight.
Pitt recently attended the “Heart of the Beast” premiere in Franklin, Tennessee, with girlfriend Ines de Ramon. An insider said he preferred the event away from Los Angeles because he wanted a more low-key environment, as reported as of Sept. 30.
Jolie and Pitt remain in a legal dispute over their French winery, Château Miraval. The next family court date on the calendar is Vivienne’s Nov. 2 hearing.
