The Truth About Billy Bob Thornton And Angelina Jolie's Divorce

Superstar actor Billy Bob Thornton has been married six times and was married to icon Angelina Jolie from 2000 to 2003. The marriage had some rocky beginnings and only lasted about three years, but Thornton has revealed that the end of their marriage was amicable and that he and Jolie are actually on great terms decades later. 

Thornton first met Jolie in 1999 when the two actors played a married couple in the film "Pushing Tin." The prolific actors quickly got married, despite Thornton being in a relationship with Laura Dern at the time, and Jolie being recently divorced but dating filmmaker and actor Timothy Hutton. Dern was left devastated by the messy affair drama, telling ABC News that Thornton abruptly left her without a word. "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 the outlet. 

While Thornton's relationship with Dern ended on a negative note, the same can't be said about his marriage to Jolie. Thornton revealed that his and Jolie's partnership came to an end not for any dramatic reason, but because the way they both lived their lives was on opposite ends of the spectrum. Still, they never stopped caring for each other. 

During an interview with Rolling Stone, "Landman" star Billy Bob Thornton revealed that he and Angelina Jolie divorced after a three-year marriage because they lived different lives, and because navigating a marriage while majorly under the public eye was rather difficult. During the exclusive conversation with the outlet, Thornton revealed that his relationship with Jolie was an extremely happy period in his life, and they did not have a catastrophic ending, but things just came to a close naturally. "That was one of the greatest times of my life. She and I are still very, very close friends," Thornton stated. "And that was the one that ended up being a really civilized breakup. We simply split up because our lifestyles were so different."

Also during the interview, the "Bad Santa" star stated that he felt like he couldn't enjoy himself out in public because they would be swarmed by paparazzi and every action they made would be judged. While a big name alone, Thornton seemed to have felt like the star power he had with Jolie as a couple was too much to live anything that even remotely resembled a normal life. "When we got together, for some reason, the people and the media are very interested in celebrity couples, that seems to be a very popular thing," Thornton said. "So it was weird. We couldn't go anywhere..." 

The fact that Thornton and Jolie are still friends isn't surprising, since Jolie also maintains a friendship with Jonny Lee Miller, and most of her other exes have said positive things about her.