Established 1980s actress Jill Schoelen returns to Hollywood for the first time in nearly 30 years. At 62, she recently completed a new movie, “Ralph’s Perfect Christmas,” scheduled for release in 2026, and released her first holiday album, “Christmas Is Forever.”
“What really took me away from Hollywood was finding out I was pregnant with my oldest son, Dante,” Schoelen told Fox News Digital. “The day I found out I was pregnant, I called my agents and said, ‘Enough is enough.'”
The actress said that after the birth of her first child, she briefly considered the possibility of continuing in the entertainment industry.
“Maybe three months after giving birth, I thought I should be ready to go back to work,” she said. “I called my agents and said, ‘I think I’m still willing to work.’ I had three job interviews and almost got them all. »
“I really wanted to be a full-time mom,” Schoelen said. “I know it’s not popular to say this these days, but as the saying goes, ‘to each his own’. I grew up in a different way than I expected. In the ’60s and ’70s, most of my friends’ mothers stayed at home. My mother not only worked, but also owned her own business and was its president. I was raised in a way that is more common for many kids today.”
“For me – and I can only speak for myself – I think it wasn’t in my best interest to grow up without my parents,” she continued.
“I didn’t want my kids to be in that situation. I wanted to be a full-time mom and a fully present parent. That said, I think there was a way to balance the two. Maybe I didn’t need to stop working completely — maybe just cut my hours 80 percent instead of 100 percent. Now that time has passed, I understand the other side.”
What many people don’t remember is that the actress broke the heart of Brad Pitt, who became her fiancé in 1989.
At the time, she was more famous than him, and her performance in “The Stepfather” earned her an invitation to participate in “Cutting Class,” the horror film in which she met Pitt, her same age. Even though their relationship only lasted a year, Brad thought she was the right woman to marry. So much so that the proposal came quickly – and so did his “yes.” In 2013, the website RadarOnline published excerpts purportedly from love letters he wrote to the actress, with lines such as “I adore you, I will love you forever” and “I can’t stop thinking about you, I don’t feel complete if you’re not by my side.”
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But unlike her, he doesn’t have good memories. In 2011, in an interview with The Sun, Pitt explained the real reason for the breakup, which he described as one of the most humiliating moments of his life. “She called me from Los Angeles crying, telling me that she felt alone and that something bad was happening… At the time, I had $800 in the bank and I spent $600 to buy a ticket to Hungary to go see her,” he recalls.
At that time, Schoelen was in Budapest, filming a new version of “The Phantom of the Opera” alongside Robert Englund (famous for playing Freddy Krueger). Upon his arrival, Pitt went straight to the set and invited him to dinner, waiting for his fiancée to explain the situation.
“She told me she fell in love with the film’s director, Dwight Little, known for directing sequels like ‘Free Willy’ and ‘Anaconda,'” the actor reported. “I was so shocked that my only reaction was to say, ‘I’m leaving.’ You don’t forget something like that – and maybe I never completely got over the feeling of humiliation.
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