Angelina Jolie's (51) Kids Once Asked for Crickets for Dinner

Most parents brace themselves for demands for candy or fast food, not something that technically has six legs.

It started on a film set overseas and turned into a full blown family habit. Eventually she had to be the one putting on the brakes.

Here’s the story behind one of the strangest snack cravings a celebrity family has ever admitted to.

A Cambodia Connection Sparked It

The whole thing traces back to a trip to Cambodia, the country where Jolie’s eldest son was born. While there, she introduced her children to crickets as a way of connecting them to their own cultural roots.

The response wasn’t hesitant at all, according to later interviews Jolie gave about the trip. Her kids reportedly devoured the crickets with so much enthusiasm that she eventually had to intervene.

Like Doritos, But Crunchier

During a video shoot for a Louis Vuitton campaign, Jolie described watching her sons snack on fried crickets as if they were chips from a vending machine. She said the boys took to them instantly and kept coming back for more.

“They ate them like Doritos, and they wouldn’t stop,” Jolie said in the same interview. She eventually had to put a limit on the snack, worried the kids would overdo it and end up with an upset stomach.

It Didn’t Stop at Crickets

Years later during a Good Morning America appearance, Jolie revealed that crickets were really just the entry point. Her family had also worked their way up to scorpions and even tarantulas while spending time in Cambodia.

She walked through the process of preparing a tarantula on camera, joking that she was still working on her seasoning game. Her advice for anyone curious enough to try it themselves was to start small with crickets before working up to anything with more legs.

Why Bugs Aren’t as Strange as They Sound

As unusual as it looks on a plate, crickets are actually a legitimate protein source eaten regularly by billions of people around the world. They’re also naturally high in iron, zinc and B vitamins, nutrients that can be harder to get from typical Western snacks.

Some research even suggests crickets digest more easily than plant based proteins like rice or corn. So the Jolie kids snacking on them like chips might have been onto something, even if it looked completely bizarre from the outside.

Every family has its own idea of a treat, and this one just happens to come with legs attached. It’s a reminder that what counts as an adventurous meal really depends on where you grew up.