It’s a tough act to upstage Amal Clooney. But when the 46-year-old human rights advocate hit the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival with her husband George and his Wolves co-star Brad Pitt, everyone was talking about the glamorous, shiny-haired brunette standing next to her. This was the first time Pitt – who split from Angelina Jolie in 2016 – officially introduced the world to his new girlfriend, Ines de Ramon.
Unlike Angelina, who was born into Hollywood royalty (the daughter of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand) and made her film debut at age seven, Ines de Ramon is not in the industry at all. In many ways, she is the anti-Angelina, staying out of the spotlight that Jolie has managed to coax into her during her decades-long career in the public eye, with her high-profile charity work, her film production company, and her fashion label Atelier Jolie.
While this may have been their first red carpet photo shoot, De Ramon, 34, was first linked to the Oscar-winning actor in November 2022, when they were spotted backstage at a Bono concert.
But unlike Pitt and Jolie, who fell in love on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith Ines and Brad met through mutual friends in 2003 and have kept things relatively quiet, especially by Hollywood standards (and Brangelina standards – Pitt and his ex adopted their first child, Zahara, together just a few months after he split from Aniston).
After that first exciting backstage Bono spot, Ines and Brad were photographed together at the afterparty for Pitt’s film Babylon and at Pace, an Italian restaurant in Hollywood, for Pitt’s 59th birthday, both in late 2022.
A year later, Pitt called Ines his “girlfriend,” and in February 2024, they moved into his Los Feliz mansion. But until this week, Hollywood’s hottest new couple had kept a noticeably low profile bar an appearance at this year’s British Grand Prix. So who is the mysterious new leading lady in Pitt’s life?
She may be the anti-Angelina, but Ramon shares many similarities with Amal Clooney. She speaks multiple languages, has lived all over the world and has a successful career outside of Hollywood.
Ramon grew up with her strict Christian Spanish family in Cologny, a posh Swiss suburb of Geneva. It seems a world away from the upbringing of Jolie, who attended Beverly Hills High School and started using heroin at age 20.
According to a Swiss blog, when Ramon attended the prestigious Collège Calvin high school, she and her friends were among the “most popular girls in school.” When her Instagram was public, she captioned most of her photos in French, but according to her LinkedIn, she also speaks fluent English, Spanish, German and Italian.
After graduating from the University of Geneva in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, Ramon entered the jewelry industry, with previous roles in the jewelry department of Christie’s and at luxury Swiss jeweler de Grisogono. She clearly knows her gemstones, with a range of certifications in her field, such as GIA Colored Stones Essentials and GIA Diamond Essentials.
She apparently keeps the actor close to her heart, wearing a necklace that starts with a “B.” She’s also a certified nutritionist and health coach, which suits Pitt — who is reportedly sober and vegan — and his new lifestyle. Though Jolie’s wild childhood was behind her when she met Pitt, they still own a vineyard together and Pitt has said he “drank too much” during their marriage.
Although she is not in the public eye, Ramon has a successful career. For the past three years, Ramon has worked for the LA-based jewelry brand Anita Ko, one of Net-A-Porter’s best-selling jewelry lines, worn by stars such as Kourtney Kardashian and Hailey Bieber. She is now a vice president of the company.
“Anita Ko is all about everyday diamonds,” says Sarah Royce-Greensill, jewelry editor at The Telegraph“It’s that LA look that’s very casual yet polished, with lots of layered diamonds with jeans and a white tee.”
It’s a look that Ramon herself embodies, and in February 2022 she even starred in a photo campaign for the brand, which she shared with her 85,000 Instagram followers (her social media has since been kept private since she started dating Brad). On the red carpet in Venice, she wore a chic, figure-hugging asymmetrical white dress, accented, of course, with diamond earrings.
Although she is not an actor or a model, this is not the first time Ramon has dated a Hollywood actor. Before Brad, she was married to Paul Wesley, who is best known for his role in the teen TV show The vampire diariesThe couple married in 2019 and have enjoyed a low-key lifestyle away from the glamour of awards shows, posting mostly photos of themselves walking their shelter dog.
By contrast, Jolie’s earlier dating history was a bit more colorful. She famously wrote her ex, Jonny Lee Miller’s, name on her shirt in blood, and wore a vial of another ex’s blood—Billy Bob Thornton’s—around her neck.
One reason Brad and Ines have kept a low profile until now is that De Ramon didn’t finalize her divorce from Wesley until February 2024. But Pitt and Jolie’s torrid divorce is still ongoing, and Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera revealed that Pitt and his ex-wife had been strategically scheduled to avoid running into each other.
“Angelina will be there on the first day, on Thursday, and she will leave right after that with [Maria director] Pablo Larrain to go to Telluride [film festival in Colorado]”, he said Vanity Fair. “So Brad doesn’t arrive until Saturday, in Venice. There’s no way they can cross paths.”
“The timing of Brad and Ines going public is really interesting,” says Rachel Richardson, who writes the pop culture newsletter Highly flammable“The cynic in me wonders if their decision to appear at the Venice Film Festival was a ploy to steal headlines, given that Angelina Jolie is also there to promote her film.”
After his divorce from Jolie, Pitt was linked to models Emily Ratajkowski and Nicole Poturalski, and perhaps more surprisingly, MIT professor and architect Neri Oxman. A source said: “He likes women who challenge him in every way, especially intellectually. Brad has seen how happy and different Amal has made George. It’s given him something to think about.”
“After so many high-profile relationships, Brad might have better luck with a normie,” says Richardson. “I’m impressed by Ines de Ramon’s confidence. Posing for the world next to Amal, George and Brad would be intimidating for anyone, but she more than holds her own. She’s a stunning woman who is very accomplished in her own right and it’s a testament to Brad’s regime that the 26-year age gap between them isn’t so obvious.”
Pitt, now 60, looked so youthful in Venice that rumors of a facelift have since gone viral.
Or maybe it’s just the rush of being in love? Sources close to the couple say he’s “never been happier” and that they’ve been trying for a baby for a year. Brad already has six children with Jolie, but he reportedly has “virtually no contact” with his four adult children and visitation rights with his two younger ones.
In Venice, 49-year-old Jolie was moved to tears by an eight-minute standing ovation for her film Mariaa biopic of opera singer Maria Callas. Meanwhile, Brad and Ines were photographed with Amal and George on a double date on a mahogany boat (in matching outfits), and made quite an entrance as they arrived at the festival, with Brad wearing a striking pair of yellow pants. Since his split from Jolie, Pitt has been praised for his “dopamine dressing”, and now regularly wears bright colors on the red carpet, after years of wearing monochromatic pieces during the Jolie era.
Ines and Brad is sad news for anyone who was hoping Brad would get back together with Jennifer Aniston, after the former couple were photographed holding hands at the 2020 SAG Awards. But while “Braines” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as “Brangelina,” maybe this new A-list couple will just go the distance. And if he pops the question, at least Ines knows exactly where to get the ring.