The never-ending divorce between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie has undoubtedly taken its toll on them both. After a seven-year fight over everything, from the custody of their six children to the division of assets – including their South of France Château, Miraval – it has become quite clear to anyone on the outside looking in that the end of the former golden couple’s relationship has grown unfathomably toxic.

Now, Jolie has made a decision that she hopes will enable her to feel free once the divorce is finally complete: she is planning to leave Los Angeles, quitting Hollywood entirely to start a new chapter. The 48-year-old told The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that the protracted court battle has led to her ‘losing the ability to live and travel freely’, something a source tells Grazia has left her feeling profoundly ‘trapped and unhappy’ in the city where she was brought up and has forged a career.

In the interview, headlined, ‘Angelina Jolie is rebuilding her life’, the actor went on to explain that she has been unable to move out of California while she and Pitt’s lawyers have battled out their split in the state where they filed for divorce. She explained, ‘It’s part of what happened after my divorce – I lost the ability to live and travel as freely. I will move when I can.’

Jolie goes on to say that she ‘doesn’t really have a social life’ and that all of her ‘closest friends are refugees’, thanks to her work with the UN and her charity-incentivised fashion label Atelier Jolie, which she announced earlier this year.

Grazia’s insider describes how Jolie has found a ‘for now’ base for her family (although Maddox, 22, and Zahara, 18, the two eldest, have now both left home to study) in the form of the estate she bought in the east LA area of Los Feliz last year. The $22.5million, six-bedroom home once belonged to director Cecil B DeMille, and is in a celeb-friendly community where Jolie counts the likes of Natalie Portman and Kristen Stewart as neighbours. This is not where the Maleficent star sees herself growing old, though, says the source. Indeed, Jolie told WSJ that she finds Los Angeles a ‘shallow’ place, which she has never been impressed by. Instead, she says she would love to live in her home in remote northwestern Cambodia, where her adopted son Maddox was born. She added, ‘Of all the places in the world, Hollywood is not a healthy place. So you seek authenticity.’

The split from Pitt has played a major part in Jolie’s disillusionment with the place where she was raised (her father is the actor Jon Voight) and, as his profile continues to rise in Hollywood (even securing a Golden Globe 2023 nomination for his role in Babylon), Jolie has notably taken a step back from acting. She’s appeared in just five films since the couple split in 2016, although her first film in three years, the Maria Callas biopic, Maria, is due out next year.

‘I wouldn’t be an actress today,’ she told WSJ. ‘When I was starting out, it wasn’t as much of an expectation to be as public, to share so much.’

On her decision to step back from acting in 2016, she says simply, ‘We had to heal. There are things we needed to heal from.’ Indeed, she has admitted that the divorce has left her ‘traumatised’, with court documents detailing an alleged assault on a private plane in 2016, which resulted in the FBI investigating Pitt on a charge of child abuse. (He has always denied the allegations and no charges were brought against him.)

Now, it’s clear that Jolie is ready to leave this deep unhappiness behind and move on with her life. As the new year comes, she can only be hoping that the whole ‘Brangelina’ drama will soon be history rather than her present.