Marriage, Interrupted, for Angelina Jolie
By Jill Serjeant
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - They flaunted their love with his and hers tattoos, blood-filled pendants and side by side cemetery plots but the two year marriage between Hollywood's most eccentric couple is now on the rocks.
Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie told Us Weekly in an interview released on Wednesday that she and husband Billy Bob Thornton had been living apart in separate hotels for four months and had not seen each other since June 3.
Jolie said she was both angry and sad at the breakdown of the two-year marriage, whose future has been the subject of frenzied Hollywood gossip for weeks.
"I'm angry. I'm sad. It's a very difficult and sad time," Jolie was quoted as telling Us Weekly in its Aug 5. edition.
"Sometimes you don't see things coming, even though they are happening. It was a real deep connection, a deep marriage, so it's not that simple to say this or that one thing caused the problems. It's clear to me that our priorities shifted overnight," she told the magazine.
A spokesman for Thornton said the actor had "no comment" on Jolie's magazine interview.
The couple's May 2000 wedding was the second marriage for Jolie, 27, and the fifth for Thornton, 46. The intensity of their romance -- each wore pendants filled with each other's blood around their necks and tattoos of each other's names -- made them instant media stars.
Jolie and Thornton, a maverick actor, writer and director, met on the set of the 1999 air traffic control comedy "Pushing Tin."
ADOPTED BABY
Jolie, who won a best supporting actress Oscar for her role as an unhinged teenager in "Girl, Interrupted," said she did not want to start "a war of words" with Thornton, adding; "I don't want to attack him publicly. That's not what I am about."
But it appeared that the Cambodian orphan the couple adopted earlier this year had come between them, adding to friction between Jolie's role as a United Nation goodwill ambassador and Thornton's pursuit of a music career.
The baby boy, called Maddox and now 11 months old, was allowed into the United States in early June. But Thornton left almost immediately to go on tour with his band to support his country-rock album "Private Radio."
"He's focused on his music and his career," said Jolie. "I'm focused on my baby. (Maddox) is so important to me. It comes down to what's important to you. Good for him. But I have other priorities," she said, adding that she would like to adopt more children.
Jolie said Thornton had declined to accompany her on one of her many trips to refugee camps in her work as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations ( news - web sites) High Commissioner for Refugees.
She declined to discuss rumors of Thornton's infidelity while on tour with the band during April and May, except to say that "he hasn't been as honorable as he could be."
Jolie said she was unsure how things would turn out between her and Thornton. "We're not divorced yet," she said. "We're going through a difficult time. I'm not sure what will happen."