California judge approves Zahara Jolie's petition to drop father Brad Pitt's surname

California court approves name change

A California judge granted a petition on 28 September 2026 allowing Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt to legally drop her father's surname. The 21-year-old Spelman College graduate is now officially registered as Zahara Marley Jolie. Zahara initiated the formal petition process on 28 April 2026, with the court filing processed on 9 June 2026. In compliance with California statutory requirements, Zahara published legal notices of the petition in the Los Angeles Daily Journal across four consecutive weeks in July 2026. The judge approved the modification without objections during the Monday court hearing in California.

Siblings take identical legal steps

Zahara is the third of the former couple's six children to legally remove Pitt from their surname. Her older brother Maddox Chivan Jolie, who was born in Cambodia in August 2001 and adopted by Jolie in 2002 before Pitt became his adoptive father, had his name change petition approved by a California judge on 14 September 2026. Shiloh Jolie, now 20, was the first to pursue legal removal when she filed on her 18th birthday in 2024, with attorney Peter Levine stating publicly that she had made an independent and significant decision following painful events. A fourth sibling, 18-year-old Vivienne Marcheline Jolie-Pitt, filed her petition in July 2026 on her 18th birthday to remove the paternal surname, with her court hearing scheduled for 2 November 2026. The remaining two siblings, 22-year-old Pax and Vivienne's twin brother Knox, currently retain the hyphenated surname. Pax previously expressed his view of his adoptive father in a 2023 Father's Day message on social media.

Happy Father's Day to this world class a***hole. You time and time and again prove yourself to be a terrible and despicable person.

Public adoption of the Jolie surname

The judicial approval aligns Zahara's legal documents with how she has presented herself in academic and public forums over recent years. In November 2023, she introduced herself as Zahara Marley Jolie during her induction speech into the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority at Spelman College in Atlanta, where she studied psychology. The college again announced her solely as Zahara Marley Jolie during her commencement ceremony in May 2026. Sibling Vivienne similarly omitted the Pitt surname when working alongside Jolie on the theatrical musical The Outsiders. Zahara has frequently accompanied her mother to public appearances and award ceremonies, including a screening of Without Blood in New York in mid-September 2026.

Decade-long separation and legal battles

The name changes occur ten years after the September 2016 split between Brad Pitt, 62, and Angelina Jolie, 51. The couple met in 2005 while filming Mr. and Mrs. Smith, married in 2014, and separated following an incident aboard a private flight from France to Los Angeles. Jolie filed for divorce days after the flight, alleging physical and verbal abuse against herself and the children. Pitt denied the allegations, and subsequent investigations by local police and federal authorities closed without criminal charges. Pitt subsequently accused Jolie of working to alienate the children from him, which Jolie denied. Following years of contentious litigation over child custody and shared business properties, including the Chateau Miraval vineyard in France, the couple finalized their divorce in December 2024.