Angelina Jolie has made a dramatic U-turn since her carefully orchestrated split with fellow Hollywood A-lister Brad Pitt last year, and US media say it has more to do with her career than her heart.

Jolie spoke for the first time publicly about her divorce from Brad Pitt in a BBC interview Monday (AEST), saying Brangelina will “always be a family”.

The actress said splitting from Pitt after two years of marriage had been a “very difficult time” for her.

“It was a very difficult time and we’re a family. And we will always be a family,” Jolie said.

“And we will get through this time and hopefully be a stronger family for it.”

The high-profile couple filed for divorce late last year after Jolie accused Pitt of a mid-flight assault on their adopted son, Maddox.

Pitt, 53, subsequently went into hiding, while Jolie and their six children moved into a Malibu mansion amid accusations the Oceans 11 star  had a terrible temper and issues with drugs and alcohol.

Jolie, 41, was awarded sole custody of the children, while Pitt would only be able to access supervised visits.

“My focus is my children, our children, and my focus is finding this way through and, as I said, we are and forever will be a family and so that is my, that is how I am coping,” Jolie told BBC ahead of the UK premiere of the Cambodian Genocide film, First They Killed My Father, which she directed.

“I am coping with finding a way through to make sure that this somehow makes us stronger and closer.”

Split badly miscalculated

Even before Jolie’s “always be a family” declaration, New York Post entertainment reporter Maureen Callahan was alleging the star had badly miscalculated the fallout of the split and her management of it.

Pointing to the standing ovation Pitt received when he appeared as a presenter at last month’s Golden Globes ceremony, Callahan wrote on Sunday that: “No matter how the Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie divorce shakes out, one thing’s clear: Pitt wins custody of Hollywood.”

Callahan described the leaks of “intimate, sordid details” of Jolie and Pitt’s relationship immediately after the split as “a remarkable data dump for a couple who had spent 12 years together on lockdown, preserving their ostensibly perfect Brangelina brand”.

Hollywood loves Brad

She wrote that after Pitt’s Golden Globes appearance, Jolie apparently realised there was one thing even she couldn’t do: “make people in Hollywood hate Brad Pitt”.

“The subtext was even worse,” Callahan said. “They tolerated her only because of him.”

And while Pitt’s acting and producing efforts continue to win him acclaim, Jolie’s directorial efforts – including last’s year’s Unbroken – have failed to fully win over critics.

And then there is Jolie’s past, especially where relationships were concerned.

“She had a reputation for stealing other actresses’ boyfriends,” Callahan wrote.

Jolie and Pitt were once the ‘ideal’ Hollywood couple. Photo: Axelle/Bauer–Griffin/FilmMagic

“Jolie married Billy Bob Thornton in May 2000 while his girlfriend, Laura Dern, was out of town. ‘I left our home to go make a movie, and while I was away my boyfriend got married,’ Dern later said. ‘I never heard from him again’.”

And of course Pitt was married to Jennifer Aniston when he met Jolie.

“It seems Jolie has begun to realise that so much of her star power and goodwill was on loan from Pitt,” Callahan wrote.

“Without it, her future in Hollywood is uncertain at best, and the damage she has done to her highly crafted image may be irreparable.”