Celebrity news is always interesting but in 1999, something happened that took many people by surprise. Regardless of whether you were paying attention to celebrity news at the time or not, this was one worth watching.
It took place when Billy Bob Thornton and Angelina Jolie got married. It seemed to come out of nowhere, but it wasn’t just the timing that was surprising, there was a lot going on behind the scenes as well.
One of the things that surprised many people was the fact that Billy Bob was 20 years older than Angelina. That was one that could perhaps be dismissed, but both of them were in relationships at the time that they decided to tie the knot.
One person who was taken by surprise at the entire situation was Laura Dern. She is an actress who was also engaged to Billy Bob at the time. According to Laura, she found out that Billy Bob was planning on marrying Angelina at the same time as everybody else found out.
It started in 1997 when Billy Bob met Laura. She had been dating Jeff Goldblum but they had recently broken up and Billy Bob was divorcing his fourth wife at the time, Pietra Dawn Cherniak. The two were then engaged and planning a wedding, but things changed in 1999.
It was in 1999 that Billy Bob met Angelina on the set of Pushing Tin. They seem to hit it off, because they were in Las Vegas in May 2000 to get married.
The fact that they were getting married was shocking to Laura Dern, and she later said: “I left our home to work on a movie, and while I was away, my boyfriend got married, and I’ve never heard from him again.”
She went on to say: “It’s like a sudden death. For no one has there been any closure or clarity.”
Billy Bob did not have much to say on the subject because he didn’t feel that he did anything wrong. He did give an interview in 2001 and said: “Others may say that you left our girl and married someone else. But it made me happy and somebody else happy. I’m sorry it caused pain.”
To add another layer to it, Laura and Angelina knew each other when they were children and Laura even babysat Angelina one time. Her father said: “Jon Voight’s a friend of mine, so I remember Laura babysat one night for Angelina when Angelina was 2 and Laura about 8 … because Jon and I were doing ‘Coming Home.’ They were staying over at [director] Hal Ashby’s house, so they asked [Laura] to come over [to watch Angie].”
Melissa Etheridge was there to help her friend Laura after the split. She said: “I was around when Angelina was not doing nice things with Billy Bob to Laura Dern. I helped Laura move out of her house with Billy Bob – I like broke into their home to get their stuff out because it was so nasty.”
They sometimes say that time heals all wounds and all those involved seemed to move on after this. Laura got married to Ben Harper and had two children before they divorced. Billy Bob and Angelina got divorced in 2002 and he stopped dating famous people. He got married to a puppeteer in 2014.
