Angelina Jolie's children are growing up so fast, and her eldest daughter Zahara is now marking the end of an era, as she turns 20 and leaving her teen years behind.
On January 8, 2025 Zahara turned 20 and it will be a celebratory week for the family, as she is close to her mom Angelina and siblings, Maddox, 23, Pax, 21, Shiloh, 18, and twins Knox Léon and Vivienne Marcheline, 16.
© FilmMagicThe week kicked off with Zahara – who is a sophomore at Spelman College – attending the 2025 Golden Globes with her mom. The pair walked the red carpet together ahead of the ceremony where Angelina was nominated for her work in Maria.
Zahara walked the carpet in a $10,000 Alexander McQueen ivory gown with stunning cherry branches embroidered in exquisite details across the bodice and shoulder.
Posing for pictures with her mom, the two showed off their close bond, as Zahara proudly watched as Angelina engaged with the photographers, and they walked hand in hand into the ceremony.
© FilmMagicTwo days earlier Zahara also joined her mom at the 36th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival awards, where they matched in black and white gowns; Zahara looked so grown up in a sleeveless white gown with a structured bodice featuring a draped design at the neckline and a delicate lace overlay on the skirt.
As well as college and red carpets, Zahara has been using her name and passion for advocacy to work alongside her mom to call for changes when it comes to racial disparities in wrongful convictions and the rights of victims.
© GC ImagesIn February 2023, the two traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet with lawmakers to advocate for the passage of the Justice for All Reauthorization Act of 2022, meeting with Senator Patrick Leahy, one of the bill's sponsors, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Zahara was adopted by Angelina in 2005, seven months after she was born in Hawassa, Ethiopia.
Angelina had visited Zahara's orphanage with older son Maddox after he had taken an interest in traveling to Africa, and it was Maddox who reportedly first saw Zahara.
© AFP via Getty Images"Kids understand sadness and poverty and hunger," Angelina said of the moment, recalling how he said Zahara "needed care".
When she first arrived in the US with Angelina and then-husband Brad Pitt, Zahara was treated for a salmonella infection at a New York City hospital and made a full recovery, and in the years after she flourished as her family grew to include Pax, Sholih, Knox and Vivienne.
In 2020, Angelina revealed that her daughter had undergone several surgeries.
© Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag"I have spent the last two months in and out of surgeries with my eldest daughter, and days ago watched her younger sister go under the knife for a hip surgery," she wrote in an essay for International Women’s Day. Angelina never revealed what the surgeries were for, nor which of her daughters had hip surgery although Shiloh was later spotted walking with crutches.
Both recovered safely at home, particularly as schools had transitioned to online schooling during the pandemic.
In 2022 Zahara marked another milestone as she began attending Spelman College and a year later pledged the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.
"My name is Zahara Marley Jolie. And [I] landed all the way from the Golden State in the city full of angels: Los Angeles, California," she told her sorority sisters in a video shared online.
As part of her role in the sorority, Zahara has helped her sisters on programs to inform women about maternal mortality rates, voter registration initiatives and in November, she helped to pack and provide packages including menstrual products and affirmations for women at the Atlanta Mission.
