Brad Pitt insists he couldn't have handled his split from ex-wife Jennifer Aniston any better, and that he did all he could to painlessly end their relationship before he started romancing Angelina Jolie.

Pitt met Jolie on the set of 2005 movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith, but deliberately delayed making a move for the beauty out of respect to his then-wife Aniston.

He tells magazine V, "The most important thing to me about that time was for Jen and me to figure out if... we didn't want to go on with any outside influence: `Is this where we get off? Have we taken this as far as we wanted to go?' Those questions had to be answered before an attraction to Angie could be answered."

He adds, "I don't know how better to have handled it. The thing guiding me then was you don't know how many days you have, and you need life to be everything you need it to be."

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(This news article provided by World Entertainment News Network)