Zahara Jolie-Pitt has taken another formal step toward dropping Pitt from her last name. Court documents obtained on Monday, July 13, show that she published notice of her petition in the Los Angeles Daily Journal once a week for four consecutive weeks, moving her request closer to a hearing scheduled for September 28.
The filing matters because California’s legal name change process requires that publication before a judge considers the request, giving anyone who wants to object a chance to do so first. Zahara filed on April 28 to change her name from Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt to Zahara Marley Jolie, and the notice now puts that request on the calendar for the next stage of review.
The step also lands after Zahara had already been using Jolie publicly. She unofficially dropped Pitt in 2024 when she was initiated into her sorority at Spelman College, and when she graduated from Spelman in May, she was called to the stage as Zahara Marley Jolie. The new filing shows the public version and the legal version are now moving in the same direction.
That split is part of what has kept the story moving. Zahara was not the first of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s children to make the break from the family surname. Shiloh was the first to file to remove it when she turned 18 in 2024, Maddox made the same request in May 2026, and Knox has reportedly used only the Jolie surname, including on his high school diploma. Vivienne also appeared as Vivienne Jolie in the Playbill for the Broadway production of The Outsiders.
For Zahara, the question now is narrower than the family backdrop. The publication requirement has been completed, the objection period is open, and the judge’s hearing on September 28 is the point at which the change can move from request to decision. If there is no objection, the path is straightforward; if there is, that filing becomes the place where the challenge has to be made.
