Brad Pitt joins Ines de Ramon at US Open women's final

What happened

Brad Pitt joined his girlfriend, Ines de Ramon, in the stands for Saturday’s US Open women’s final in New York, taking photographs with spectators during an outing that combined tennis with attention from fans.

On court, Elena Rybakina, representing Kazakhstan, beat Belarus’s Aryna Sabalenka over three sets. The result ended Sabalenka’s attempt to retain a title she had won at the previous two editions of the tournament.

Pitt, 62, took a spectator’s phone and held it out for a photograph with three women sitting in the row behind the couple. He also posed for other selfies before play began, engaging with fans who approached him at the event.

De Ramon, a 33-year-old jewellery executive, sat beside him. During one conversation, she leaned towards the actor and rested a hand against his chest. Pitt was also seen talking to another spectator with a hand on de Ramon’s knee.

For the match, Pitt wore jeans, a light-blue polo shirt and a baseball cap turned backwards. De Ramon chose a short, strapless dress patterned with a newspaper-style print, a more dressed-up choice for their day in the stands.

The appearance came in the same week that Pitt’s former wife, Angelina Jolie, discussed her relationship with their six children. Her comments focused on their growing independence and the experience of working alongside two of them on her films.

The background

Pitt and de Ramon have been together since 2022. Their sporting outings have included other tennis tournaments and the World Cup, making the New York final part of a wider pattern of attending major events together rather than their first appearance as a couple.

They first walked a red carpet together at the Venice Film Festival in 2024. That occasion was the premiere of Wolfs, which stars Pitt, and placed their relationship alongside the public promotion of his screen work.

Jolie, 51, and Pitt have six children, all now adults. Maddox is the eldest at 25, followed by Pax, 22, and Zahara, 21. The three joined the family through adoption.

Their daughter Shiloh is 20, while twins Knox and Vivienne are 18. The twins reaching adulthood means Jolie’s account of parenting now concerns a family in which even the youngest children are beginning their adult lives.

The children are estranged from Pitt. Four — Maddox, Zahara, Shiloh and Vivienne — have filed legal documents to remove his surname. Those filings are distinct from choosing to use a shorter name informally or in a professional credit.

Vivienne is the most recent of the siblings to make the surname change official. Pax and Knox are the two children outside that group of four. The family developments form a separate strand of Pitt’s personal life from his relationship with de Ramon.

The tennis behind the occasion

Rybakina’s victory supplied the sporting significance of the afternoon. Sabalenka entered the final as the winner of the two preceding US Open women’s singles titles, so retaining the championship would have extended that run to three consecutive editions.

Women’s singles matches at the US Open are played over the best of three sets. A final that reaches a third set therefore requires a deciding set, with neither player having secured the two needed for victory after the first two.

The US Open is one of tennis’s four Grand Slam tournaments, alongside the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon. These events bring the women’s and men’s competitions together within the same tournament programme, while awarding separate singles championships.

New York’s Grand Slam is played on hard courts. That distinguishes it from the clay of the French Open and the grass of Wimbledon, the British tournament most familiar to many UK viewers. The surface is part of the competitive setting, not simply a difference between host cities.

The women’s singles final decides its own title; it is not a preliminary round of the men’s competition. For spectators attending Saturday’s match, the contest between Rybakina and Sabalenka was the championship match itself, ending with a change of title-holder.

What people are saying

Speaking to L’Officiel USA, Jolie described a close relationship with her children in which they understand the different aspects of her personality. Her account concentrated on everyday family relationships rather than presenting her acting and directing career as the centre of their shared lives.

Maddox and Pax have worked as assistant directors on her films. Jolie discussed that collaboration from the perspective of a parent who values time with her children, explaining that being together remained important even when the setting was a professional production.

An assistant director’s work is generally concerned with organising a film shoot and helping its schedule run effectively. It is a production role rather than an acting credit, giving context to the kind of involvement Jolie was discussing when she spoke about her sons’ work.

She also expressed pride in the children’s distinct personalities. The emphasis was on allowing each to develop an individual identity, rather than expecting them to follow a single family pattern or to become extensions of her own public life.

Her approach to parenting, she explained, includes recognising that a child has ambitions and a perspective separate from those of a parent. Support, in that account, involves giving them room to make their own way as well as remaining involved in their lives.

Jolie’s remarks about family life were not an account of the tennis outing. In New York, the visible interaction with Pitt came instead from fellow spectators seeking photographs, including the women seated immediately behind him and de Ramon.

What happens next

Jolie said she was looking towards a period with greater emphasis on community and personal connection as her children entered adulthood. She framed that prospect around the next stage of her own life, after years of raising a family that included younger children.

Her comments also set out a continuing parental role: helping the children pursue their own potential while avoiding imposing her choices on them. That is the approach she described for a family whose members now span the ages of 18 to 25.

Why this matters

For UK tennis followers, the immediate consequence is a new US Open women’s champion. Rybakina’s win ended Sabalenka’s two-title sequence at one of the sport’s four major tournaments, giving the New York final significance beyond the famous spectators in the stands.

For audiences following Pitt and Jolie, the week brought two different public developments: an appearance by Pitt with his partner and Jolie’s reflections on parenting adult children. Her sons’ production work and the siblings’ surname changes also show the different professional and personal choices being made within the family.