James Haven, the 53-year-old actor and older brother of Angelina Jolie, publicly came out as gay during a livestream with his ex-wife, less than two years after their marriage was annulled over claims of "fraud."
Haven made the announcement Thursday on a Substack livestream hosted by his former spouse, Romi Imbelli, and contributed a written statement to Imbelli's memoir, "Breathe Mija." In both, he framed his disclosure as the end of a long struggle with identity and the beginning of what he called a life of "hope, peace, and love." USA TODAY reported that representatives for Jolie and their father, veteran actor Jon Voight, did not respond to requests for comment.
Haven and Imbelli married in August 2024. The union ended almost immediately. Imbelli confirmed the annulment to People magazine shortly afterward, citing "fraud" but offering no further details. Nearly a year and a half later, the two sat down together on camera, not as adversaries, but as collaborators on Imbelli's memoir project.
In the written statement published through Imbelli's Substack and quoted by Entertainment Weekly, Haven described a childhood awareness of his identity that he lacked the vocabulary to express. He recalled sneaking glitter onto his cheeks and mascara onto his lashes as a boy, captivated by Disney princesses.
"When I was a little boy, I was absolutely obsessed with the Disney princesses. I would sneak glitter onto my cheeks, swipe mascara onto my lashes, and for those moments, I felt like magic. I didn't have the language back then to explain why I just knew it made me feel more like me. It was never about pretending to be someone else. It was about letting a part of myself shine that had always been there."
Haven is the son of Voight and the late actress Marcheline Bertrand, and two years older than Jolie. He has spent most of his adult life out of the Hollywood spotlight his sister and father occupied, working intermittently as an actor.
In a follow-up video posted to Imbelli's Substack profile, Haven tied his disclosure to years of working through what he described as childhood trauma, though he did not elaborate on its nature.
"After many years of healing from childhood trauma, I am now free to live the life that I believe I was always meant to live: One of hope, one of peace and one of love. So, as my story unfolds, I want you all to know that I do it with an open heart, with nothing but love for myself and for all of you."
He also addressed his family directly in the written statement, asking them to look past what he called "labels."
"I hope my family and others can choose love over fear, understanding over judgment and connection over the beliefs that may have kept us apart. I hope they can look beyond the labels and simply see me with the same heart, the same laugh, the same soul they've always known."
Whether Jolie or Voight have privately responded remains unknown. Neither camp offered a public statement.
The livestream's most unusual element was the presence of Imbelli herself. She married Haven in August 2024, sought an annulment almost immediately, and told People the reason was "fraud", a legally loaded word she never publicly explained. Yet on Thursday she sat beside him on camera and spoke about the experience with evident sympathy.
"Everybody has their own experience that they are living through with a family member, a parent, a relationship. Jamie and I have been really big on recognizing that what he went through [in] this is his very own that is valid and real and happened for him. And what I went through in this was very real and valid for me. Two different traumas happening."
Imbelli's memoir, "Breathe Mija," includes Haven's written statement as a contributed chapter. The book's publication date has not been disclosed.
The arrangement raises questions the livestream left unanswered. If the "fraud" Imbelli cited in the annulment was Haven's concealment of his sexual orientation, neither party said so explicitly. And if it was something else entirely, the public record offers no clarity. What is clear is that both chose to present a united front, a decision that, whatever its private motivations, gave Haven's announcement a built-in layer of credibility and emotional weight it might not have carried alone.
Haven's disclosure arrives in a cultural landscape far different from the one that greeted earlier high-profile announcements. When NBA veteran Jason Collins came out as gay in 2013 through a first-person essay in Sports Illustrated, he became the first active player in a major U.S. professional sports league to do so. Collins received public support from President Obama, former President Clinton, the NBA, Nike, and athletes across multiple sports. As the Washington Examiner reported at the time, public acceptance of gay relationships had already been shifting, the share of Americans who viewed same-sex relations as morally wrong dropped from 76 percent in 1987 to 43 percent by 2012.
Haven's announcement drew no comparable institutional fanfare. He is not a major public figure in his own right, and the cultural ground Collins helped break has long since been settled in mainstream entertainment. But Haven's statement carried a personal specificity, the childhood memories, the plea to his family, the oblique reference to trauma, that set it apart from a routine celebrity disclosure.
His written statement also gestured toward a tension familiar to many conservative and religious families. "I hope my family and others can choose love over fear, understanding over judgment and connection over the beliefs that may have kept us apart," he wrote. He did not name those beliefs or identify which family members, if any, he feared would reject him. But the phrasing suggested a divide he was bracing for, not one he had already crossed.
Haven chose to make his announcement not through a legacy media interview or a social media post, but through his ex-wife's Substack, a platform with a small, self-selected audience. The written statement reached a wider public only because Entertainment Weekly quoted it. The follow-up video lived on the same Substack profile.
That choice of venue kept the moment controlled and intimate. It also kept it tethered to Imbelli's memoir project, which stands to benefit from the attention. Whether that commercial dimension shaped the timing or format of Haven's disclosure is a question neither participant addressed.
And the biggest gap in the story remains the word "fraud." Imbelli used it to explain the annulment to People magazine. Haven's coming out now offers an obvious possible explanation, but neither he nor Imbelli connected the two on the record. Until one of them does, or until the annulment filings surface, the public is left to draw its own conclusions from the timeline: a wedding in August 2024, an annulment shortly after, and a joint livestream nearly two years later in which the groom told the world he had always been gay.
Sometimes the facts speak plainly enough on their own.
