Angelina Jolie’s ex-husband once explained why she wore a 'vial' of his blood on a necklace.
Jolie, 49, and fellow actor Billy Bob Thornton, 69, had a short-lived but nonetheless whirlwind romance after first crossing paths back in 1999 on the set of Pushing Tin before tying the knot just a year later in 2000.
However, their marriage didn't work out as they divorced just three years later in 2003 allegedly due to their difference in lifestyles.
"We just had different lifestyles," Thornton said in a podcast interview for HFPA in Conversation back in 2018. "Hers is a global lifestyle and mine is an agoraphobic lifestyle.
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"So, that's really - that's the only reason we're probably not still together, maybe, because of a different path in life we wanted to take."
However, he did assure: "I look at that time as a great time.
"Angie is still a friend of mine and she’s a great person and she’s done so much."
Now, their relationship was clearly one of much intrigue to fans at the time with many extremely curious about one particular thing they did as a couple to declare their love for one another - wearing each other's blood around their necks.
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Speaking to students at Loyola Marymount University's School of Film & Television in 2014, Thornton explained: "[A] vial of blood is very simple. Angie came home one day with a kit she bought.
"You know those lockets you buy that are clear and you put a picture of your grannie in it or something like that and wear it around your neck? That's what it was. She bought two of those."
Thornton recalled: "We were apart a lot because she's off making Tomb Raider and I'm making Monster's Ball. We were on opposite ends - we see each other for two weeks and whatever.
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"She thought it would be interesting and romantic if we took a little razor blade and sliced our fingers, smeared a little blood on these lockets and you wear it around your neck just like you wear your son or daughter's baby hair in one. Same thing.
"From that we were wearing quart jars of blood around our necks."
He addressed the blood necklaces once again in the HFPA in Conversation podcast, saying the things he and Jolie did were 'exaggerated' while insisting 'it wasn’t as crazy as people wrote about it'.
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"The necklaces were a very simple thing: 'Hey, let’s poke our fingers with a pen and smear a little blood on there, and when we’re away from each other we’ll wear the necklace'. It was that easy," Thornton said. "But by the time it came out in the press, it sounded like we were wearing a bucket of blood around our necks."
Jolie has also shared her side of the story, explaining that it was more a 'flower press' than a vial.
In 2008, she told Entertainment Weekly: "It was never a vial... It was like a flower press.
"It was like from a slight cut on your finger and you press your fingerprint in. It was kind of a sweet gesture. I thought it was kind of romantic!"
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Jolie added: "I still love him dearly and think the world of him and I'm proud to have been his wife for a time. I don't believe in regrets. It's a dangerous habit to get into - it makes you pause in your life if you start thinking back and questioning yourself."
Topics: Celebrity, Angelina Jolie, Sex and Relationships
Rhiannon Ingle