Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt: Anatomy of an Engagement!

Pitt finally put a ring on his longtime love—so let's recap their Hollywood love affair

By Natalie Finn Apr 13, 2012 10:11 PMTags
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In "making a promise for the future"—i.e., getting engagedAngelina Jolie and Brad Pitt instantly made their fans swoon and wedding planners salivate.

Pitt has put a custom-made ring on Jolie after roughly seven years, three adoptions and two pregnancies together—but it's the thousands of tabloid headlines they've survived that make us think they've really got a shot at making it.

So, in honor of the happy news, let's take a look back at what the history books mean when they say "Hollywood romance":

20th Century Fox

January 2005: Pitt and Jennifer Aniston announce they're separating after four and a half years of marriage, saying they "happily remain committed and caring friends with great love and admiration for one another." Aniston files for divorce in March.

May 2005: Time to pick sides! Pitt walks on the beach in Kenya with Jolie and her then-3-year-old son, Maddox. A week later, they meet up in London and jet to Morocco, where Pitt's shooting Babel.

June 2005: Jolie tells the Today show's Ann Curry: "To be intimate with a married man, when my own father cheated on my mother, is not something I could forgive. I could not look at myself in the morning if I did that. I wouldn't be attracted to a man who would cheat on his wife."

July 2005: Pitt and Jolie play a married couple with five kids in a domestic-noir-themed photo spread in W. Pitt also goes with Jolie to Ethiopia, where she adopts daughter Zahara.

September 2005: In a cover-story interview with Vanity Fair, Aniston discusses the split in depth and admits to being "shocked" by Pitt's immediate hookup with Jolie. She also famously says that her ex "has a sensitivity chip missing."

October 2005: Pitt and Aniston's divorce is finalized. She gets the house and eight years of grief.

Jan. 19, 2006: Zahara and Maddox's last names are legally changed to Jolie-Pitt, and the adoption is finalized soon after.

May 26, 2006: Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, the couple's first biological child, is born in Namibia. People pays a reported $4.1 million for first-picture honors.

October 2006: Pitt tells Esquire that he and Jolie will get married when "everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able." The term "marriage equality" becomes even more significant for tabloids.

March 15, 2007: Jolie adopts Pax from Vietnam as a single parent because the country doesn't allow unmarried couples to adopt. By May, he's a Jolie-Pitt. People buys the first pics of their newest addition for a reported $2 million.

July 12, 2008: Twins Knox and Vivienne are born in Nice, France. Pitt and Jolie donate the record $14 million they supposedly got for domestic and international photo rights to charity.

October 2008: Jolie implies to the New York Times that there could be more kids in their future: "I mean, I know we seem crazy, just bringing them in one after the other, but we do plan." Oh, she also says that she can't wait to show her kids Mr. & Mrs. Smith because "not a lot of people get to see a movie where their parents fell in love."

December 2008: Aniston is quoted on the cover of Vogue saying: "What Angelina did was very uncool."

August 2009: Pitt reiterates what he said about marriage equality in Parade: "I stand by that, although I took a lot of flak for saying it—hate mail from religious groups."

January 2010: Relevant parties shoot down an In Touch Weekly story that Jolie had an affair with her Salt dialect coach. However, the couple skip that month's Golden Globes and SAG Awards (Inglourious Basterds won the top prize), further fueling rumors of trouble in paradise.

February 2010: Pitt and Jolie sue now-defunct British tabloid News of the World over a report that they're separating. The claim is settled in July, with all proceeds going to the Jolie-Pitt Foundation. The still-going-strong couple walk the Oscar red carpet together.

November 2011: Pitt tells Australia's 60 Minutes that he wants to switch from acting to producing when he's 50—and that he's "not sure if [he and Jolie] are finished" having kids!

Feb. 26, 2012: Jolie exposes her right leg through the thigh-high slit in her Versace gown at the Oscars...and the Internet (or our view of Julia Child holding a turkey) is never the same.

April 13, 2012: Pitt's manager confirms that he and Jolie are engaged, though they haven't set a date yet.