UPDATE 9am: Ah, Hollywood. Entertainment news sites in the US cite sources close to the couple denying Angelina and Brad are breaking up. “It’s B.S.” was the quote to TMZ. No denial that they’ve seen a lawyer, but maybe the fairytale isn’t finished yet.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are reportedly set to break up. Without wanting to be too facetious about it, how could any couple survive with all those kids, money, and fame?
Dysfunctional, doomed relationships are the rule rather than the exception among Hollywood’s megastars. Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore seem pretty happy together but with a relationship that smacks of a public relations power play as much as theirs, it is hard to see them growing old happily together, him in his 50s lovingly tending to both a vegetable patch and the needs of his septuagenarian wife.
“Brad Split” and “Pitts all over” was how the UK’s News of the World broke the news that the world’s best-looking couple in Hollywood had been to see a top divorce lawyer to negotiate their separation (they’re not legally married). There have been rumours for a long time now that their marriage had become difficult following the death of Jolie’s mother. Repeated public claims that a relationship is doomed must start to create a sense of self-fulfilling prophecy.
By their own admission they have had a fiery relationship, with Jolie telling a German magazine earlier this month: “The sparks fly at home if the nice Brad fails to see that he’s wrong and reacts in a defiant way. Then I can get so angry that I tear his shirt.”
According to The Sunday Times the couple finally decided to separate after an explosive row triggered when Pitt tried to talk Jolie into seeking help for her rumoured depression.
It claimed that Pitt staged the six-hour dinner as an intervention to persuade Jolie, 34, to get psychiatric help. It alleged that she had suffered depression since the death of her mother from ovarian cancer three years ago, since when Jolie’s weight has dropped dramatically. It also claimed she had made a suicide attempt.
Brad and Angelina have six kids - three adopted children and their biological kids including 17-month-old twins.
Elsewhere: Joe Hildebrand has a great take on the bust-up here, arguing their separation paves the way for gay people to divorce.
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