The one thing you need to be an artist is a silly little name. Something like “Banksy” or “Beeple” or “Hans Holbein the Younger.” Though there was a report that Pax Jolie-Pitt, son of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, understood this, it turns out that the story is false: Jolie-Pitt is not working as an artist under a pseudonym, a spokesperson for Angelina Jolie has told Vanity Fair. This is good news because according to the original report on Page Six, Jolie-Pitt had allegedly chosen “Embtto” as his pseudonym.
No word yet on where that name came from. When you google “Embtto,” Google is like, Did you mean “embryo?” Could it have been short for “embattled” or “embittered,” in the way that mid-aughts brands like Tumblr and BHLDN are short for “Tumbler” and “Beholden”? No need to worry at all about this; Pax isn’t going by “Embtto” at all.
There are already a few children of the rich and famous who operate under assumed names. Rocco Ritchie, Madonna’s son with Guy Ritchie, definitely does go by Rhed, and made art that was reportedly listed for as much as 24,000 British pounds before Page Six outed him as—cover your ears!—a nepo baby. Then of course there are the artists who don’t feign distance from parents who might overshadow them. Hunter Biden, for example, hasn’t made any gestures toward anonymity when it comes to his pricey pictures.
What we can rely on, I guess, is that we always knew those Jolie-Pitts would grow up one day, and strike out on their own. There are so many of them, and the paths they could feasibly go down are plenty. Shiloh can dance. Zahara is at Spelman. Maddox is about old enough to be graduating from Yonsei University in South Korea. It’s a wide world out there. Follow your bliss.
This article has been updated with a denial from Jolie’s spokesperson.
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