7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Angelina Jolie

Celebrated Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie, who split from her star husband Brad Pitt a few months ago, jetted into the country on Tuesday. PHOTO/FILE

What you need to know:

  • When she was 14, her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, allowed her to live with her then boyfriend in a bid to keep her from going out partying and potentially turning to drugs.
  • According to Boomsbeat , Jolie and her boyfriend slept in her room for two years while her mother spent her nights in the room next door.

Celebrated Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie, who split from her star husband Brad Pitt a few months ago, jetted into the country on Tuesday.

The 42-year-old came to Kenya as a UNHCR special envoy to mark World Refugee Day. She met adolescent refugee sexual assault survivors in Nairobi, including a girl who, she said in her speech, was the “same age as my eldest son” and is “already a mother to a child born of rape”.

Here are some interesting facts about the mother of six:

SHE IS A UNIVERSITY LECTURER

In May 2016, Jolie was appointed a visiting professor at the London School of Economics, one of Britain’s most prestigious universities, according to Daily Mail, Jolie agreed to give a minimum of one lecture in the one-term master's course.

The course includes modules on Women, Peace and Security, Gender and Militarization.

SHE IS A PILOT AND OWNS A PLANE

Jolie is a licensed pilot and owns a single-engine Cirrus SR22 airplane she bought for $360,000 (Sh37 million). However, in December 2013 she was temporary barred from flying the plane after she failed to renew her registration on time.

STARTED LIVING WITH HER FIRST BOYFRIEND AGED 14

When she was 14, her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, allowed her to live with her then boyfriend in a bid to keep her from going out partying and potentially turning to drugs. According to Boomsbeat , Jolie and her boyfriend slept in her room for two years while her mother spent her nights in the room next door.

STUDIED EMBALMING

After graduating from high school, she joined the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute to study acting but dropped out after two years. She took that bold step to pursue her desire of becoming an undertaker. She went on to study embalming (the art and science of preserving human remains by treating them to forestall decomposition)

HAS 14 TATTOOS, INCLUDING ONE OF EX-HUSBAND BRAD PITT

Jolie’s tattoos are almost as famous as the movies she’s starred in. Her first tattoo, featuring the words “A prayer for the wild at heart kept in cages”, was done on her left arm in her mother’s presence. 

In total she has 14 tattoos all over her body, including one indicating the birthplaces of her children and her ex-husband Pitt.

Interestingly, back in 2002, she had one of Billy Bob Thornton, another of her ex-husbands, removed when they broke up. She went on to swear at that time, “I’ll never be stupid enough to have a man’s name tattooed on me again”, according to Life&StyleMag.com.

ONCE A LESBIAN

When she split from Jonny Lee Miller, just before the divorce was finalised, Jolie had her first openly gay relationship, dating fellow actress Jenny Shimizu for a year until she met Thornton.

SHE IS SUPERSTITIOUS

Jolie is a very superstitious person, as evidenced by most of her tattoos. She once had a tattoo of a dragon and a Chinese character symbol of death, which she later erased. She has said that all her tattoos had meanings. In 2001, after a year of marriage to Thornton, they signed their wills using each other’s blood.