Hollywood loves a good myth. Especially the kind that involves dungeons, dark arts, and blood. If you were around in the early 2000s, you probably remember the absolute circus surrounding Billy Bob Thornton and Angelina Jolie. They weren't just a couple; they were a tabloid fever dream.
People called them vampires. They said they were obsessed with death. Decades later, the smoke has cleared, and honestly? The reality was way less "Gothic horror" and a lot more "two intense people who just didn't fit."
The Blood Vials That Weren't Actually Vials
Let’s get the big one out of the way. Everyone "knows" they wore vials of each other's blood around their necks. Except, they didn't. Not really.
Billy Bob has been setting the record straight lately, especially in recent 2025 interviews where he looked back on that era with a mix of affection and "can you believe people bought that?" energy. The "vials" were actually just standard locket kits. You know, the kind you buy at a hobby shop to put a photo of your grandma in?
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Angelina bought two. They were clear. She thought it’d be a romantic gesture since they were going to be apart for months—her filming Tomb Raider and him working on Monster’s Ball. They poked their fingers with a razor, smeared a tiny drop of blood on the inside, and closed them up.
"By the time it's over, we're vampires," Thornton told Rolling Stone. "We live in a dungeon, we drink each other's blood." In reality, it was just a smudge of DNA in a cheap necklace. It's funny how a small, weirdly sentimental act turns into a story about a blood-drinking cult when the paparazzi get a hold of it.
That Vegas Elopement and the Laura Dern Situation
The start of their marriage was just as messy as the rumors. They met on the set of Pushing Tin in 1999. At the time, Billy Bob was actually engaged to actress Laura Dern.
Dern’s account of the breakup is legendary in Hollywood circles for being particularly brutal. She famously said she left home to work on a movie, and while she was gone, her boyfriend got married and she never heard from him again. No phone call. No "it's over" text. Just a news report that Billy Bob and Angelina had eloped in Las Vegas on May 5, 2000.
They wore jeans. It was a quick, 20-minute ceremony at the Little Church of the West. He was 44; she was 24. That 20-year age gap fueled a lot of the "she’s a wild child" and "he’s a cradlesnatcher" narratives that defined their three years together.
Why They Actually Broke Up
If you listen to them talk now, the reason for the split wasn't some dramatic explosion. It was actually kind of boring.
Jolie was becoming the global humanitarian we know today. She was traveling to Cambodia. She was seeing the world through a lens of activism. She wanted to adopt. In fact, they officially announced plans to adopt Maddox together in early 2002.
But Billy Bob? He’s a self-described homebody. He’s struggled with agoraphobia and various eccentricities (like his famous fear of antique furniture). While she wanted to be in a refugee camp, he wanted to be in his studio or on a movie set.
"Hers is a global lifestyle and mine is an agoraphobic lifestyle," Thornton explained on the HFPA in Conversation podcast. Basically, she grew up and he stayed the same. It happens to regular people every day, but when you have "Billy Bob" tattooed on your arm, the world notices when you stop showing up to premieres together.
Where They Stand in 2026
It’s been over 20 years since their divorce was finalized in 2003. Most celebrity exes have enough "he-said-she-said" drama to fill a library, but these two? They’re actually good.
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Thornton has called their time together "one of the greatest times of my life." He’s been happily married to Connie Angland for over a decade now, finding the stability he clearly lacked in his younger years (he was married five times before her).
Jolie, meanwhile, has been through the wringer with her high-profile divorce from Brad Pitt. Through all that, her friendship with Billy Bob has remained a weirdly stable constant. He still speaks about her with massive respect, calling her "awesome" and "a great person" as recently as the 2025 CMA Awards red carpet.
Key Takeaways from the Thornton-Jolie Era
- The "Blood Vials" were tiny lockets with a single drop of blood, not actual jars of the stuff.
- The age gap mattered, but lifestyle differences were the real deal-breaker.
- They remain "very, very close friends" to this day, proving that even the most chaotic relationships can evolve into something healthy.
- Tabloid narratives are rarely accurate. The "vampire" image was a media construction based on a few eccentric sound bites.
If you’re looking to understand the real history of Hollywood’s most "bizarre" couple, look past the 2001 headlines. The truth is that they were two artists who caught fire for a few years, realized they were heading in opposite directions, and had the sense to walk away while they still liked each other.
To get a better sense of their current lives, you can check out Thornton’s work in the latest season of Landman or follow Jolie’s ongoing humanitarian projects through the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation. Both have moved far beyond the "blood and lockets" phase of their careers.