While Angelina Jolie is doing her darnedest to block Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston from having access to his children at every turn, the actor is finding some solace in the fact that another of his own is turning out to be a chip off the old block.
WATCH: Justin Theroux found Brad Pitt love notes to Jen Aniston
Brad’s favourite niece – who, according to many sources, he “loves like his own” – Sydney Pitt has just graduated from a prestige US college with a degree in architecture, inspired by her beloved uncle.
New Idea has learned exclusively that he rewarded young Sydney with the keys and an open invitation to his beloved Santa Barbara mansion as a graduation present, and that he and Jennifer, who recently reunited, are spoiling her rotten.
“Sydney was born right around when Brad and Jen began dating. She was a tiny baby when Brad brought Jen home to Missouri to meet his parents and his brother, Doug – Sydney’s dad,” says our insider.
“Because of that, Jen shares a special bond with her, too. Sydney has always called her Aunt Jen – something that bothered Angelina no end when Brad was married to her.”
Sydney and her family, including siblings Reagan and Landon, have long used Uncle Brad’s beach house for family vacations, but now Jen and Brad are trusting her to holiday there alone.
“I’ve heard he’s even thrown in the use of his beloved Tesla. He trusts Sydney implicitly, as if she was his own daughter,” says our source.
“He knew she had a good head on her shoulders when she started showing interest in studying to be an architect.”
Brad, 56, took time out of his acting career to study under renowned architect Frank Gehry, and has his own furniture collection with New Jersey-based businessman Frank Pollaro.
“I’m very interested in architecture. I’ve been asked if I’d ever direct, but me, I’d rather build,” he once said.
Jennifer, 51, also has an eye for design and has created a modernist, zen retreat out of her Bel Air mansion.
When Sydney graduated at the weekend from the $84,000 a year, liberal arts Drury University in Springfield, Brad’s hometown, and posed at the front of a building named for his dad, William, he “couldn’t have been prouder”.
“Brad and Jen are having that picture framed,” says a source.
“Angelina is doing her best to keep him and his own kids apart, and so far he and Jen haven’t managed to have a child of their own, so they are pouring a lot of parental joy into Sydney.
“It also helps their little family fantasy that Sydney looks just like Brad as a youngster. It helps them understand what it would have been like for them if they’d had a child when they were first married.”
The source continues: “Brad and Jen like to think they’d have had a girl just like Sydney, and that they might have even grown up together.”
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