Why we're so broken up about the Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt breakup
Nothing is sacred in Hollywood anymore, or so the adage goes. Especially not in Hollywood relationships. So why are we breaking out the Kleenex and vodka over the breakup of two of the A-list of A-listers? Or conversely, shallowly rejoicing with gifs and Friends reruns?
Didn’t we expect this fate from a couple that started in the most dramatic of fashions? A couple who have both spent their lives in an industry that notoriously puts the American divorce rate of 50 percent to shame?
The short answer is no. Many fans believed these crazy kids would make it to the end, if outpourings on Twitter are any indication of group sentiment. And there are a few reasons why we’re more emotional over BrexPitt than your average Taylor Swift parting of ways.
Of course there are the children -- any child of divorce or friend of a divorced family can sympathize with the pain of split parents -- and we’ll respect their wishes and leave them out of it.
The real reason for our outsized interest has to do with how the couple got together, and the fact that they positioned their relationship as above the Hollywood fray.
Twelve years ago Pitt and Jolie got together out of the ashes, or so it felt, of America’s golden couple. America’s Sweetheart and favorite Friend, Jennifer Aniston, and the Sexiest Man Alive were married for nearly five years, and as Vanity Fair’s Leslie Bennetts described, the two “seemed the most fortunate couple imaginable—two beautiful superstars who had hit the jackpot, earning not only fame and riches but also an enduring love.”
Though in a classic example of being unable to read what is really happening on the inside, even if you’re the one in the relationship,the couple parted ways, issuing statements that the decision was reached after thoughtful consideration, having nothing to do with rumors of infidelity or Pitt’s sexy new Mr. and Mrs. Smith co-star.
It was the kind of news that sparks a million tabloid headlines. Was it Jen's focus on her job that broke them up? Could they not agree on having children?
Four months later the first real photographic evidence of Brangelina appeared and the questions were answered. There was, in fact, another woman and they were galavanting around the beach at a resort in Africa.
But after the shock and "Jen is DEVASTATED" headlines abated, fans began to warm to Brangelina. They had great chemistry in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. He adopted her children.
If two people are crazy enough to go through so much turmoil to be together, maybe it’s a love affair straight out of an old Hollywood film, right?
Flash forward through the next decade, and the couple’s focus on their growing brood of children, work with the UN, support for each other’s careers and general downplay of the dramatic fashion in which they got together helped cultivate a kind of celebrity elite status that set them apart.
They had seemingly pulled off the impossible: Getting out of a messy Hollywood divorce with A-list status and careers intact and with none of the philandering, home-wrecking connotations.
They were advocates for LGBT rights, refraining from marrying until all men and women could marry the partner of their choosing. And even when they tied the knot before the Supreme Court passed its landmark decision, their explanation of doing it for the children passed the snuff test for many. Angelina also became a face of breast cancer after opening up about her decision to undergo a double mastectomy.
They became a symbol for true love. People on Twitter have gone as far as to equate them to the Obamas for their solid relationship status.
And they worked to cultivate that image. Less than a year ago they gave a rare interview to Tom Brokaw and the Today show, promoting the strength of their marriage and leading the veteran journalist to say they'd re-written the celebrity guidebook to fame.
It was one of the last they gave before today's news hit, news that feels squarely out of the old celebrity guidebook. They've cited irreconcilable differences, a wish to focus on the children. The internet has gone into overdrive coming up with possible theories on their break-up: Infidelity, bad parenting, jealousy, differences in lifestyles.
In the end it's been a classic celebrity divorce, despite the picture painted of pure love and high-mindedness, one that's left us wondering what true love means in Hollywood.