Angelina Jolie is said to have upset Brad’s sister in law, Julie, by sending her kids a violent video game. She gave the game Ghost Squad to Brad’s sister Julie’s kids for Christmas, prompting Julie to send it back with a note saying “We don’t promote violence in our home.”

[Brad’s sister] Julie was shocked when Angie sent her children the commando-style video game Ghost Squad. According to a family insider, Julie and her husband Rob sent it back with a note that read, “We don’t promote violence in our home.”

Julie and Rob “shun these kinds of violent games for kids,” says the insider. So when they got the present, it was just too much. It went right back in the box.”

Angelina was not pleased. “She was really angry,” the insider reveals. “She thinks it’s normal and part of being a kid. She even bought Maddox a knife-throwing set and is encouraging him to learn to throw knives!”

[From Star Magazine, print edition, January 21, 2007]

The article goes on about Angelina’s “dark side.” She lets Maddox play with toy guns like a lot of other children, and she even had a military-themed party for Maddox’s sixth birthday last August. Maddox was seen out wearing a little gun necklace recently, which generated some negative buzz for the goodwill ambassador for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Although Angelina often speaks out on behalf of refugees and talks about the atrocities of war, she also takes violent movie roles and isn’t adverse to letting her kids play with guns.

As a mother of a toddler who is extremely interested in cars and robots I can say it’s very hard to guide what they want to play with and thankfully my son isn’t that into guns. He also hasn’t been exposed to them much, so that’s probably part of it. He’s pointed his fingers at us and made the shooting noise though, and he does have one of those guns that shoot foam darts and he loves to play with that. To me it’s something kids are interested in and will grow out of.

You have a say in it of course, but if you don’t let them play with something or make a big deal out of it it’s going to make it all the more appealing to them. Before I had a child I had a different opinion about it, and I don’t agree with the knife-throwing thing, but it might not be a real knife set and could be a dart type game geared at kids.

Maybe Angelina heard from Brad’s nephews and/or nieces that they wanted the Ghost Squad game or maybe she just looked it up and saw that it was popular with their age group. We don’t know how old their kids are and it’s possible they’re in their mid to late teens and that a game like that wouldn’t be totally inappropriate. Either way, if this story is true she should have asked their mother first if it would be an acceptable game for their household.

Angelina and Brad are shown at the Critic’s Choice Awards on 1/7/08, thanks to PRPhotos.