Real reason Brad Pitt missed BAFTAs in February

Brad Pitt was missing from the BAFTAs, with Margot Robbie accepting an award on his behalf. Now we know why he wasn’t there.

Brad Pitt missed the BAFTAs to be by his daughter’s side as she recovered from an operation, multiple sources confirm to Page Six.

In February, the star cancelled his trip to London at the last minute – and sent co-star Margot Robbie in his place to pick up his gong for his role in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in … Hollywood.

He cited a “family obligation” at the time, as a source close to the actor told us: “The children come before anything.”

As ex-wife Angelina Jolie revealed that two of their daughters had recently undergone surgery, a friend of the family confirmed that Pitt – who dedicated his Oscar win to his six kids – stayed home in LA to support his daughters.

Margot Robbie at the BAFTAs. Picture: Tolga Akmen / AFP

Brad Pitt won an Oscar this year. Picture: Rachel Luna/Getty Images

However, the friend admitted that Pitt had never spoken publicly about his kids – and never will – as Jolie spoke out.

In a Time magazine essay published on Sunday in honour of International Women’s Day, Jolie wrote that her eldest daughter, Zahara, 15, and one of her younger daughters – either Shiloh, 13, or Vivienne, 11 – were operated on.

Jolie made no mention of Pitt, as she said the family had come together.

“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,” the actress wrote.

“I have watched my daughters care for one another. My youngest daughter (Vivienne) studied the nurses with her sister and then assisted the next time.

“I saw how all my girls so easily stopped everything and put each other first and felt the joy of being of service to those they love.”

While Jolie never said what Zahara was going through and she did not explain why the younger daughter had hip surgery, she did suggest it was serious as she wrote that they were “fighting to survive”.

Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio in Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.

“We all know that moment when no one else can help us, and all we can do is close our eyes and breathe. When only we can take the next step or breath through the pain, so we steady ourselves and do it,” she wrote.

She said sons Knox, 11, Pax, 16, and Maddox, 18, were “supportive and sweet,” adding: “But on this International Women’s Day, writing from the hospital, I find myself focusing on my daughters for a moment and all that I have learned from them and other young girls I have met around the world.”

Meanwhile, Pitt attended a Thundercat gig with friend Alia Shawkat on Saturday night at The Wiltern in LA, Page Six is told.

This article originally appeared on the New York Post and was reproduced with permission

Originally published as Real reason Brad Pitt missed BAFTAs in February