If you searched for James Haven today, you’re probably trying to piece together what actually happened, in his own words, and how it fits into a family story that’s been in headlines for over two decades. Here’s the short version: on August 6, 2026, James Haven—the former actor, filmmaker, and older brother of Angelina Jolie—publicly came out as gay during a livestream with his ex-wife, Romi Imbelli. He didn’t just make an announcement. He read a letter about childhood trauma, Disney princesses, glitter, and decades of hiding, then called it the start of a new chapter of his life.

This article breaks down exactly what he said, who Romi Imbelli is and why she was the one standing beside him, what’s known (and not known) about how his family has responded, and the fuller picture of who James Haven is beyond being Jon Voight’s son and Angelina Jolie’s brother. By the end, you’ll understand the full context of this story—not just the headline.

What Happened: The Announcement, in Brief

James Haven, 53, publicly came out as gay on Thursday, August 6, 2026. He didn’t do it through a press release or a scripted interview. He did it live, on a Substack broadcast called Breathe Mija, run by his ex-wife Romi Imbelli, and the moment was cross-posted to Instagram shortly after.

The format itself is worth noting. This wasn’t a solo announcement. Haven and Imbelli sat down together, on camera, and talked through their history before he read a personal letter aloud. At one point during the livestream, Imbelli turned to him and asked, half-joking, what he identifies as. He responded simply: “I’m gay.”

He followed that with a longer, written reflection, framing the moment not as a confession but as an arrival. In his own words, shared across multiple outlets covering the stream, he said he was beginning a new chapter of his life after years of healing from childhood trauma, and that he was finally free to live as he was always meant to.

Key facts at a glance:

Detail	Information
Who	James Haven, 53 (born James Haven Voight)
What	Publicly came out as gay
When	August 6, 2026
Where	Livestream on Romi Imbelli’s Substack, Breathe Mija, plus Instagram
Who was with him	Romi Imbelli, his ex-wife
Relation to Angelina Jolie	Older brother
Father	Jon Voight

James Haven’s Own Words: Reading the Letter

The most striking part of the announcement wasn’t the fact of it—plenty of public figures come out later in life—it was how specific and personal Haven’s letter was. He didn’t lean on vague language about “self-discovery.” He went back to a concrete childhood memory.

He described being a little boy who was “absolutely obsessed with” Disney princesses, sneaking glitter onto his cheeks and mascara onto his lashes because, for those brief moments, he felt like magic. He didn’t have the words for it then. He just knew it made him feel more like himself.

That detail matters for understanding the shape of his coming out story. This wasn’t framed as a sudden realization in adulthood. It was framed as something he recognized early, then spent decades learning to hide. He put it directly: as he got older, he started wondering if that “sparkle” was something he had to bury to be accepted by the boys around him. Like a lot of gay kids, he said, he learned to question parts of himself long before he ever learned to celebrate them.

He closed his reflection with a line that’s since been quoted across entertainment outlets: coming out, he said, isn’t about becoming someone new—it’s about letting everyone else finally meet the person who was there all along.

Why This Framing Matters for LGBTQ+ Readers

There’s a reason this specific type of coming out story resonates so widely, especially with LGBTQ+ audiences who came of age in more conservative households or eras. Haven’s account—recognizing something in early childhood, suppressing it for social acceptance, and only naming it decades later—maps closely onto a pattern that mental health professionals and LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations have long described: the gap between internal awareness and public sexual orientation disclosure often stretches across an entire adult life, shaped by family expectations, religious upbringing, and professional pressures rather than genuine confusion about identity.

Haven’s account also intersects with his own religious history. He became a born-again Christian in 2009, a detail that adds another layer to a story about reconciling personal truth with the environment he grew up in.

Who Is James Haven? Background for Readers Who Don’t Recognize the Name

Not everyone reading this headline knows who James Haven is beyond “Angelina Jolie’s brother,” so here’s the fuller picture.

He was born James Haven Voight on May 11, 1973, in Los Angeles, California—two years before his sister. Their parents are actor Jon Voight, an Academy Award winner, and the late actress and producer Marcheline Bertrand, who died in January 2007 after an eight-year battle with cancer. Voight and Bertrand divorced in 1980, and Bertrand raised James and Angelina largely on her own, moving the family to Palisades, New York, before they returned to Los Angeles when James was around 13.

He studied filmmaking at the USC School of Cinema-Television, a natural fit given the family’s deep ties to the entertainment industry.

A quick snapshot of his career and public life:

• Film roles: Appeared alongside his sister in the HBO biopic Gia (1998) and in Original Sin (2001)
• Retired from acting in 2013
• Directing: Directed his father, Jon Voight, and actor Anton Yelchin in the short film Court of Conscience (2015)
• Producing: Produced the 2005 documentary Trudell, about Santee Sioux musician and activist John Trudell, his mother’s late partner
• Activism: Has served on the board of the Artivist Film Festival & Awards since 2006, an organization focused on films addressing human rights, environmental, and animal rights issues
• Name change: Legally dropped “Voight” from his name during a period of estrangement from his father
• Faith: Became a born-again Christian in 2009
• Family support: Took an active, protective role with Jolie’s children, particularly after her 2016 split from Brad Pitt

So while the headlines frame him through his family, Haven has built an independent identity as a Hollywood actor-turned-filmmaker and activist. That context matters because it’s part of why this announcement felt, to those who’ve followed him, like a genuinely personal decision rather than a manufactured media moment.

The Infamous 2000 Oscars Kiss — Why It Still Comes Up

Any deep dive into James Haven eventually runs into one specific, decades-old moment: the 2000 Oscars. At the 72nd Academy Awards ceremony, Jolie won Best Supporting Actress for Girl, Interrupted. On the red carpet and later on stage, she brought her brother as her date, and during her acceptance speech she said she was “so in love with my brother right now.”

Later that night, at the Vanity Fair afterparty, the two shared a brief kiss on the lips—a split-second moment that ended up on front pages and magazine covers the next day. It sparked years of tabloid speculation that both siblings have consistently and directly rejected as untrue. It’s included here only because search interest around James Haven still frequently connects to that moment, and it deserves accurate, non-sensationalized context rather than repetition of old gossip.

Romi Imbelli’s Role in the Announcement

If you’re new to this story, Romi Imbelli might be the most surprising character in it. She’s not a stranger brought in for a media moment—she’s someone who has known Haven for more than two decades, and their relationship has taken several unusual turns.

Imbelli, 44, born Romi Klinger, first became publicly known as a cast member on Showtime’s reality series The Real L Word, which followed a group of LGBTQ+ women in Los Angeles and aired from 2010 to 2012. Since then, she’s worked as a hairstylist, makeup artist, and self-described identity coach, and she’s been writing a memoir called Breathe Mija on Substack.

Here’s the relationship timeline that led to the coming-out livestream:

1. Haven and Imbelli first became close roughly 23–24 years before their wedding, developing a long friendship.
2. They married in a private ceremony in Laguna Beach, California, in August 2024, with close family present, including Jon Voight.
3. Tension surfaced early, and reports at the time described a serious conflict shortly after the wedding.
4. Imbelli filed to have the marriage annulled in March 2025, citing fraud, roughly seven months after the ceremony.
5. Despite the annulment, the two remained close, describing themselves as best friends.
6. On August 6, 2026, they appeared together on Imbelli’s livestream, where Haven came out publicly with her support.

Her own statement, shared on Instagram alongside the announcement, made the reasoning behind her involvement clear. She said she wasn’t there to out someone she loved—she was there to help set someone free, and that in return, he set her free too. She described Haven as her family, her best friend, and one of the great loves of her life, even though their romantic relationship as spouses had ended.

During the livestream itself, Imbelli also spoke candidly about her own internal conflict—how she recognized parts of his truth for a long time but had to work through the grief of losing the relationship she had imagined, before arriving at acceptance of him as her life partner in a different sense: family, not spouse.

Expert insight: From a relationship-dynamics standpoint, this is a fairly rare public example of a former spouse actively facilitating a partner’s coming-out process rather than distancing from it. It reframes the narrative away from “failed marriage” and toward mutual healing—something advocacy groups often highlight as a healthier model than the more common narrative of secrecy or estrangement following a coming-out disclosure inside a marriage.

Family Reaction: Angelina Jolie and Jon Voight

This is the part of the story where accuracy matters more than speculation. As of this article’s publication, there is no confirmed, direct public statement from Angelina Jolie specifically responding to her brother’s announcement. Given how private Jolie tends to be about family matters, readers should treat any claims of a detailed reaction with caution unless it’s directly sourced to her or her representatives.

What is documented is the broader family context that shapes how this news lands:

• Jolie and Haven have remained close throughout their adult lives, despite Jolie reportedly not attending his 2024 wedding to Imbelli.
• Jon Voight, 87, was present at Haven’s 2024 wedding and has a complicated but ultimately repaired relationship with his son. The two were estranged for roughly six years following Marcheline Bertrand’s 2007 death, before reconciling.
• Haven has previously spoken about being protective of Jolie’s children, especially during her divorce from Brad Pitt, describing a close, involved role in the family’s day-to-day life.

If Jolie or Voight issue a public statement, that will meaningfully change this section—but as of now, the accurate takeaway is that the family relationship appears to remain intact and supportive in the background, without a formal public comment from either of them.

What’s Next for James Haven

Haven’s announcement wasn’t presented as an isolated moment—it came with forward-looking plans that suggest a deliberate next chapter in his public life.

He revealed an upcoming weekly podcast titled Save Haven with James Haven, produced by Wonder Peak Media. Based on how it’s been described, the show will center on guiding guests through the pivotal moments, choices, and turning points that shaped who they became—a format that lines up closely with the personal, reflective tone of his own coming-out letter.

There’s also the possibility of a book. During the livestream, Imbelli suggested Haven should write about his life story, and he responded with visible interest, though no formal book deal or release date has been confirmed publicly.

What this suggests about his public role going forward:

• A likely pivot from behind-the-scenes activism toward more direct, personal media presence
• Continued involvement with LGBTQ+ visibility and storytelling, given the podcast’s stated format
• A possible return to public-facing creative work after retiring from acting in 2013

Why This Story Is Resonating

Part of why this James Haven news has traveled so widely isn’t just the Jolie connection—it’s the specific shape of the story. Coming out at 53, after a former spouse actively helps facilitate the process, is a narrative that doesn’t fit the more familiar coming-out templates people are used to seeing in celebrity news.

A few reasons this particular story stands out:

• Age and timing. Coming out later in life, after a full career and a marriage, speaks to readers who associate coming-out stories almost exclusively with teenagers or young adults.
• The nature of the marriage. Rather than framing the marriage and annulment as a scandal or deception story, both Haven and Imbelli have publicly reframed it as part of a shared healing journey.
• The tone of the disclosure. Haven’s letter leaned heavily on themes of acceptance, choose love, and understanding, rather than defensiveness or crisis—language that tends to land differently with audiences than a reactive or forced disclosure.
• The specificity of the childhood memory. The Disney princess detail gave the story a concrete, human anchor rather than an abstract statement about gay identity.

Common Misconceptions About This Story

Given how fast this story moved across entertainment outlets, a few misunderstandings are worth correcting directly:

Misconception	What’s Actually True
Haven and Imbelli are still legally married	Their marriage was annulled in March 2025; they now describe their bond as a close friendship and chosen family
Angelina Jolie has publicly reacted	No confirmed public statement from Jolie exists as of this article’s publication
The 2000 Oscars kiss was related to this announcement	The two events are unconnected; the kiss controversy predates this by 26 years and both siblings have repeatedly denied any romantic implication
Haven just met Imbelli through the announcement	They had known each other for roughly two decades before marrying
This was Haven’s first public statement about identity	The letter describes years of internal recognition dating back to early childhood, not a sudden realization

Key Takeaways

• James Haven, 53, publicly came out as gay on August 6, 2026, during a livestream on ex-wife Romi Imbelli’s Substack, Breathe Mija.
• His announcement centered on a personal letter describing childhood memories, years of hiding, and healing from childhood trauma.
• Haven and Imbelli married in August 2024 and had their marriage annulled in March 2025, but remain close.
• No confirmed public statement has been issued by Angelina Jolie or Jon Voight as of publication.
• Haven has announced a new podcast, Save Haven with James Haven, signaling a more public next chapter beyond his earlier career as an actor, director, and activist.

Conclusion

James Haven’s story is simple at its core. He waited decades to say who he really is. When he finally did, he chose honesty over silence, and love over fear. His words about childhood, healing, and acceptance give this moment real weight.

What makes this story stand out is the support around it. James Haven didn’t come out alone. His ex-wife stood beside him, choosing friendship over bitterness. That kind of support is rare, and it’s worth remembering. His journey shows that it’s never too late to live as your true self.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is James Haven really Angelina Jolie’s brother?

Yes. James Haven, born James Haven Voight, is the older brother of Angelina Jolie. They share the same parents: actor Jon Voight and the late actress Marcheline Bertrand.

How did James Haven come out?

He came out publicly during a livestream on his ex-wife Romi Imbelli’s Substack, Breathe Mija, on August 6, 2026. He read a personal letter about recognizing his identity since childhood, and the announcement was also shared on Instagram.

Is James Haven still married to Romi Imbelli?

No. The couple married in August 2024 in Laguna Beach, California, and Imbelli filed for an annulment in March 2025. They remain close and describe each other as family and best friends.

What does James Haven do for a living now?

He retired from acting in 2013 and has since worked as a director, producer, and activist, serving on the board of the Artivist Film Festival & Awards since 2006. He recently announced a new weekly podcast, Save Haven with James Haven.

Has Angelina Jolie commented on her brother coming out?

As of this article’s publication, there is no confirmed public statement from Angelina Jolie directly addressing her brother’s announcement.

Why did Romi Imbelli help James Haven come out?

The two have been close friends for over two decades. Despite their brief marriage ending in annulment, Imbelli described supporting his coming out as an act of love, saying she was there to help set him free, not to out him.