It’s hard to believe, but Knox and Vivienne Jolie-Pitt are now 1 year old! Ironically, it was exactly one year ago at this time (the time I’m writing this, I mean) that I was scouring the web for confirmation of the twins’ birth after discovering strong rumors about it on various sites! I’ve included the story of how I came to find out the news at the bottom of this post. Anyway, I wanted to do a sort of retrospective on the twins’ lives so far, just as I did with Shiloh for her third birthday in May. However, there is, unfourtnately, only one set of candid photos of them (the Narita airport pictures). So, I’m doing mostly a retrospective on Angie’s pregnancy instead, along with a few notable events from Knox and Viv’s lives so far!  Please click the “more” button to view! 

In late 2007/early 2008, the tabs began going nuts with rumors that Angelina was pregnant for the second time. They even went as far as to claim that she was expecting not one baby, but TWO! When Angie began going out in public wearing baggy, bump-disguising clothing, as well as opting not to ski on a family outing to a ski lodge, fans began to speculate as well. Then, in late January of 2009, Angie and Brad attended the SAG Awards….with Angie wearing an extremely flowly, uncharateristic dress. That and the fact that she was seen drinking only water at the afterparty had most people convinced that there was a baby (or babies!) on the way.

In late February 2008,  Angie and Brad attended the Indepandant Spirit Awards…and everyone finally got the answer to the buring question they’d been wonderig about. Angie and Brad did not say a word, but Angie’s obvious bump confirmed it: another Jolie-Pitt was on the way! Now, of course, everyone started asking, “Is it true that it’s twins?”

In May of 2008, Angie and Brad attended the Cannes Film Festival. It was there that Angelina’s Kung Fu co-star, Jack Black, spilled the beans. Angie and Brad were indeed expecting twins (poor Jack was mortified afterward, as he had assumed it was just common knowledge. He had no idea until after the fact that he was, in fact, confirming it to the entire world!)! Luckily, Angie was not upset, and even said she was grateful that Jack had confirmed. She and Brad had wanted to confirm themselves, but hadn’t known how to do it. Jack solved that problem for them! Naturally, everyone started wondering if Angie was carrying two girls, two boys, or one of each…and most people were secretly hoping for at least one boy, so they could see a mini-Brad! The media went so “Brangelina twins” crazy that in late May of 2008, ET announced that Angie had given birth to twin girls named Isla Marcheline and Amelie Jane. The only problem? It wasn’t true! ET just dug itself in even deeper when, after Brad’s rep denied the birth rumors, they continued to insist that the twins had been born. They eventually retracted the story and issued a correction….but I have a feeling they’ll be wiping the egg off their faces from that one for a long time!

On July 1, 2008, Angie was admitted to the Foundation Lenval Hospital in Nice, France. Naturally people wondered whether she was there to give birth to the twins. A day later, however, Angie’s doctor gave a press confrence, explaining that Angie was just in for “routine monitoring” and wasn’t expected to give birth for a few weeks yet. So the world waited with baited breath!

Finally, on July 12, 2008, the event everyone had been waiting for happened: Angelina gave birth to Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline at the Foundation Lenval Hospital in Nice, France. The twins were delivered via C-section, with 5.3lb Knox arriving first at 6:27 p.m., and 5lb Vivienne following one minute later, at 6:28 p.m. On August 4th, the twins were introduced to the world via a spread in PEOPLE (and HELLO in the U.K. and elsewhere outside the U.S.). Angie and Brad revealed how the names were chosen: Knox was the middle name of Brad’s maternal grandfather (Hal Knox Hillhouse), Leon was “a strong, French name”, Vivienne was simply “a name that came to us early in the pregnancy”, and Marcheline was, of course, to honor Angie’s beloved mother, Marcheline Bertrand.

At just 4 months old, the twins became the center of controvsy when the November 2008 issue of W Magazine came out. The magazine included a photoshoot of Angie, as well as a few shots of the kids, done by Brad himself. The cover of the magazine depicted Angie breastfeeding one of the twins…and naturally some people really overreacted! They obviously failed to release that all you can see of the twin is some cute little fingers poking out above Angie’s chest, and you can see a lot less of Angie’s breast than is visable in some of her movies!

In late January of this year, Knox and Viv made their only public appearence so far: At Narita airport in Japan with their parents and siblings. In those pictures, it was easy to see that Knox is Brad’s mini-me, and Viv resembles Angie. 🙂

 How I Found Out the Twins Had Been Born

Initially I was very cautious about believing the news. On the one hand, Knox struck me immeditely as the type of name Angie and Brad would use (I was, I’ll admit, I bit surprised at their choice of Vivienne at first). On the otherhand, however, ET famously (or is it infamously?) falsely announced that Angie had given birth to the twins back in late May…and had even gone so far as to report names. Therefore, I knew it was possible that someone had done that again.

While looking at the comments section of one of the websites, however, I discovered that Angie’s lawyer, just as s/he did within hours of Shi’s birth, had snapped up pretty much every avaliable URL with the names Knox or Vivienne Jolie-Pitt in it. I immeditely went to Whois, a site where you can find out, among other things, who owns a particular URL. I typed in knoxjoliepitt.com and then viviennejoliepitt.com. Sure enough, Angie’s lawyer had indeed bought those domain names. Even though I knew there was virtually zero chance that someone could have faked that, I still could not believe the news 100 percent (to this day, I don’t quite know why that was! I guess I just didn’t want to be dissapointed!).

I then headed over to PEOPLE’s website, as they post breaking news like that no matter what time of day or night it is. Finally, at approxamitely 2:00 a.m., they posted out! I just about squealed with delight! You’d have thought a family member of mine had just given birth!