It took years for actress Beverly D'Angelo to forgive her ex Al Pacino for launching a bitter custody battle over their fraternal twins after they split.
The National Lampoon's Vacation star gave birth to the couple's son Anton and daughter Olivia, both 16, in 2001, two years before she called it quits with The Godfather actor, and now admits she was blindsided by their 2003 break-up, and never imagined she'd be single so soon after becoming a first-time mom.
“I had a fantasy that when you have kids, you do it in a family setting,” the 65-year-old tells Closer magazine. “After we’d known each other for three months, (Al) looked me in the eyes and said, ‘I want you to be the mother of my children.’ That’s all I had to hear."
"I got pregnant at 48, delivered six weeks after I was 49, and by 51, I was looking at a landscape as a single parent," D'Angelo recalls. "When you focus on getting pregnant, you can lose the perspective that you’re creating a family and a responsibility to a child’s future."
Beverly struggled to change her mindset after the split and the former couple became embroiled in a bitter custody feud over their twins as a result.
But now, nearly 15 years on from the drama, D'Angelo has come to a space of forgiveness, and she and her ex have become friends again.
“The key thing is creating a new history, and moving on from whatever dissolved that relationship to the new one of co-parenting,” she explains. “The most important thing I’ve learned is how vital acceptance is. We all have a desire to change things that we don’t like, but you can’t change another person.
"You have to accept differences and all the things that led to a break-up in a way that allows you to move forward. And out of my support system and people I know and love, I’ve created the ideal (parenting) partner.”
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