
Angelina Jolie’s daughter, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, once asked for a dead pet. This is a quote I somehow missed from the earlier coverage of Jolie’s Vogue cover. I was caught up in the weird choice of cover photo, shot by Mario Testino, and the cute quotes about Jolie’s children. There were also not-so-cute quotes from the interview, that weren’t as widely circulated. For example, Jolie’s retelling of an exchange between her and Shiloh, 4, where the child asks to keep a dead bird the pair discover in their yard. ‘She came in and said, ‘Can I have a dead pet?” Jolie recalls. ‘And I’m … ‘Uh-uh, I don’t think it’s healthy, honey. I think they have to put him in a box,’ and I had to run out to find, like, a taxidermy bird. I just worked it out for her.’ When asked whether Shiloh understood anything about taxidermy, Jolie responded, ‘No.’ However, ‘I figured that I couldn’t keep the actual dead bird from the yard, so I swayed her toward one that had been cleaned, at least.’ I can’t even decide the extent to which this freaks me out.