Custody Disputes End as Brad Pitt’s Children Seek to Drop His Surname</TITLE]Following years of legal proceedings, the custody agreement between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie has reached its conclusion. Their youngest children, twins Knox and Vivienne, celebrated their 18th birthday on July 12, 2026, officially marking the end of the former couple’s protracted custody battles.

Custody Disputes End as Brad Pitt’s Children Seek to Drop His SurnameFollowing years of legal proceedings, the custody agreement between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie has reached its conclusion. Their youngest children, twins Knox and Vivienne, celebrated their 18th birthday on July 12, 2026, officially marking the end of the former couple’s protracted custody battles.

Pitt and Jolie, who ended their marriage in 2016 after a decade-long relationship, share six children: Maddox (24), Pax (22), Zahara (21), Shiloh (20), and twins Knox and Vivienne (18). The separation reportedly began following a 2016 flight incident that Jolie’s legal team has characterized as a violent altercation, triggering years of litigation.

Despite Pitt being granted joint custody in 2021, five of the children—Maddox, Zahara, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne—have reportedly chosen to drop his last name. Two of them have recently taken formal legal steps to remove “Pitt” from their names.

Court documents obtained by TMZ show that Zahara recently satisfied a California requirement for a legal name change by publishing notice of her request in the Los Angeles Daily Journal for four consecutive weeks (June 16, June 23, June 30, and July 7), allowing time for any objections before the final hearing. Her court date is set for September 28, when a judge will decide on the request if there are no objections. Maddox followed the same process, running his petition on June 10, June 17, June 24, and July 1.

Shiloh was the first to officially remove “Pitt” from her last name, filing the paperwork on her 18th birthday: May 27, 2024. Vivienne followed suit by dropping “Pitt” in the Playbill for the Broadway musical The Outsiders, which she helped produce with Jolie. In June 2026, Knox also omitted “Pitt” from his high school diploma.

According to Us Weekly, Pitt has expressed a desire for a better relationship with his children. “He feels most hurt out of everything that happened with Angie that his children don’t want a public association with his last name,” an insider revealed in late May 2026. “It’s been very difficult.”

Despite the estrangement, the source said that Pitt “still does hope and keeps the door open to eventual reconciliation, hopefully with all of them, but it is their decision. He has no power and he can’t force them.”

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