Angelina Jolie's friendship comment will irritate most women. They're missing the point.

Angelina Jolie has given a rare and wide-ranging interview, covering everything from fashion to raising her children and her life post-divorce from Brad Pitt. 

But it was a throwaway line as the Vogue interview concluded that will stop most women in their tracks.

In the feature, the actor says “I’m not really somebody that has girlfriends, so this has been an interesting jump for me." 

Jolie is talking to Gabriela Hearst, a former creative director at Chloé and a collaborator on Angelina's new socially conscious fashion label, Atelier Jolie.

The writer in the piece followed Jolie to visit Hearst, as the author described their relationship as having "the easy rapport of old friends." 

The women only met two years ago through a mutual friend. 

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Angelina's admission that she's not "somebody that has girlfriends," is something rarely shared by women, let alone very, very famous women. 

But this revelation is not that surprising. 

Angelina Jolie's enduring anti-women legacy. 

Unlike other Hollywood women, or more specifically her tabloid nemesis Jennifer Aniston, Jolie's friendships are rarely portrayed in the media, instead she is typically seen on her own, or alongside her children. 

By contrast, someone like Aniston is known for her female friendships with fellow celebrities like Courtney Cox and Reese Witherspoon. 

Jolie being considered a lone wolf and Aniston as a 'girl's girl' is a trope that goes back decades. Of course, no one needs to be reminded that Aniston was married to Pitt when he met Jolie on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith in 2004. 

But this followed another situation where Jolie was portrayed as a 'man stealer'. 

In 1999, Laura Dern was engaged to and living with Billy Bob Thornton when suddenly he started a relationship with Jolie. "I left our home to work on a movie, and while I was away, my boyfriend got married, and I've never heard from him again," Dern told Talk magazine in 2000.

Like Jen, Laura is commonly depicted a girl's girl — she's even part of Jennifer, Reese, and Courtney's girl gang, with the foursome spotted together on holidays, at parties, and (most importantly) on Instagram. 

The real Angelina Jolie. 

But is this depiction of Jolie as some friendless, loner, who preys on taken men at odds with the actor and activist in recent years? 

It's been reported that Jolie and Gwen Stefani have been friends for decades. In 2021, it was reported that she had struck up a friendship with Grey's Anatomy actor Ellen Pompeo, as they both lived in the Los Feliz area of California. 

And just this year, Salma Hayek opened up about her long-standing friendship with Jolie. “She's been very, very enriching in my life, in so many ways — as mothers, you know," she said in September 2023. 

“And it's just natural. It's just something that flows."

Jolie may have female friends and acquaintances — but no actual girlfriends — and this is something that shouldn't tarnish her character, or paint her as anti-women. 

Making friends is hard. And keeping them can be harder, especially as the years tick by.  

For some reason, women who have a lot of girlfriends are upheld as supreme members of the sisterhood.

There's no doubt that some female friendships can be a blessing, but sometimes not having close women as friends can be a more nuanced consequence of being more introverted, losing touch with older friendships formed in younger years, or simply being someone who prefers their own company (also cats can be incredible company too). 

In the case of Jolie, she's spent the past seven years in a bitter custody battle with her ex-husband, Pitt. Jolie filed for divorce in 2016, and what followed was years of legal troubles, including Angelina accusing Brad of an incident on a plane where he physically abused her and their children, before Brad sued his ex for selling a winery they shared. 

The latter legal battle is still ongoing between the ex-partners. 

What Angelina Jolie has said before about friendship. 

This isn't the first time that Angelina has spoken about the lack of girlfriends in her life. When she was still married to Pitt, she revealed she didn't have many friends. 

"I'm just not very social," she told Marie Claire in 2011. "I'll talk to my family. I talk to Brad... But I don't know, I don't have a lot of friends I talk to. He is really the only person I talk to." 

Years after the divorce, Jolie said she spends most of her time with her six children: Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Vivienne, and Knox. 

“I never expect to be the one that everybody understands or likes. And that’s OK, because I know who I am, and the kids know who I am," she said in a 2017 interview with the New York Times. 

"We’re really such a unit. They’re the best friends I’ve ever had. Nobody in my life has ever stood by me more.”

And now Jolie has found a kindred spirit in her collaborator, Hearst, and the feeling is mutual. 

“I admire people who use their spotlight to illuminate those who need it,” Hearst said about Jolie. “And she’s the epitome of that.”

Earlier in the interview, Jolie spoke about how she felt "a bit down" lately, but she's hopeful that the coming years will be her time for self-discovery. 

"I don’t feel like I’ve been myself for a decade," she said. “I think part of this has also been therapeutic for me—to work in a creative space with people you trust and to rediscover yourself." 

Feature image: Getty.