Angelina Jolie and rapper Akala are not dating, despite reports suggesting the pair have become a couple after they were pictured together leaving a hotel in Venice.
Instead, a source has claimed that the actress and UK musician are just friends.
“She and Akala are not dating. She is friends with him and his partner, Chanelle, who was also there,” one source told PEOPLE on Thursday (August 29).
Before being pictured together in Venice during the International Film Festival, In Touch claimed that the pair has been seeing each other for “more than a year”.
A second source, however, clarified to that the Oscar-winning actress and Akala have been friends for “several years,” and that Jolie is currently single.
“They share the same passion when it comes to social and humanitarian causes,” the source told PEOPLE. “They did several collabs over the years that focus on global issues like human rights. Angie speaks very highly of him.”
Akala rolling with Angelina Jolie is so random. https://t.co/EX8Zh8vsk2
— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) August 29, 2024
now what the hell is akala doing with angelina jolie 😭
my multiverse of madness fr https://t.co/Hes1JCdk12
— stefan • (@stefanbertin) August 29, 2024
Akala and Angelina Jolie must have the deepest convos of all time
— Zig Buu (@ItsBigZuu) August 29, 2024
The speculation surrounding the pair comes eight years after Jolie divorce from ex-husband Brad Pitt.
Jolie filed for divorce in 2016 following an alleged physical altercation on a private plane, with one of their children, Maddix, allegedly involved in the incident.
Pitt was subject to a “child abuse investigation” in relation to the alleged incident, with the Los Angeles Department of Child and Family Services later clearing the actor of wrongdoing.
Details of the alleged altercation came to light further in 2022 after Jolie was revealed to be the plaintiff in an anonymous complaint against the FBI, which had closed an investigation into Pitt’s alleged domestic assault. Pitt has denied all allegations of wrongdoing.
In recent news, Jolie and Pitt’s daughter Shiloh revealed the “painful events” that prompted her to change her name. Shiloh, who is the third-eldest child of the former Hollywood couple, applied for a name change on her 18th birthday this year (May 27).
She filed the petition at the Los Angeles County Superior Court and as per law in California, publicly announced her decision to make the name change in a legal notice in the Los Angeles Times. According to the petition (via The Los Angeles Times), she wants to be known as Shiloh Nouvel Jolie going forwards.
It came after two of Pitt and Jolie’s other children appeared to have distanced themselves from Pitt’s name, with eldest daughter Zahara introducing herself as “Zahara Marley Jolie” in an Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority video (via Essence). Daughter Vivienne also recently dropped the name Pitt from a credit in Playbill for Broadway’s The Outsiders, according to People.