Brad and Angie: break-up latest.
New details have emerged about the row on the plane that ended the Brangelina marriage as Brad pours his heart out in a bizarre interview
ASAD dad with only a smelly bulldog for company. A strong, decisive mother calling all the shots. Parents trying to do their best for the brood they blended in once apparently blissful harmony. This is the reality of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie eight months into their postsplit lives. And try though they might to keep things as private as possible when it comes to their six kids, details keep emerging to entrance the brigade of Brangelina fans who still can’t quite believe these two are headed for the divorce court.
Here’s all the latest drama.
NEW INFORMATION ABOUT THAT PLANE TRIP
A source has described that fateful night in September. Apparently Brad had been drinking heavily, which wasn’t exactly unusual – and for Angelina, Brad’s boozing and subsequent behaviour was the final nail in the coffin.
Angie and Brad were on a 12-hour flight from France to Los Angeles with the kids and she instructed her husband to sober up before their jet touched down at Minnesota’s Falls International Airport to refuel, the source adds.
Clearly this didn’t go down well, and things escalated into a highly charged confrontation, the source told Us Weekly magazine. The couple’s eldest, Maddox (15), allegedly tried to intervene – and it got physical.
When things got rough, Angelina reportedly contacted a travel coordinator and tried to organise cars for the children as the plane came in to land.
She was still trying to diffuse the situation with Brad, telling him they could talk about everything in the morning. But he wasn’t having it, the source continues. “He yelled at Angie that she could go to a hotel if she wanted to go, but the kids were coming with him.”
“Angie didn’t want to call the police,” the source said. “She didn’t want a media circus.”
Apparently when they touched down Brad stormed off the aircraft, wandering around, screaming, cursing and blowing off steam. He also drove a service vehicle around and urinated on the tarmac.
Angie suggested she fly on to LA alone with Maddox, Pax (13), Zahara (12), Shiloh (10) and twins Knox and Vivienne (8), but Brad refused point-blank, the source added.
According to the source, their arguing delayed take-off but eventually the family boarded for the last leg of their trip. The standoff continued on the threeand-a-half hour flight to Los Angeles, during most of which an exhausted Brad silently stewed.
Angelina decided enough was enough, the source added. “She went ahead and organised separate cars for her and the children, which were waiting on the runway. The kids piled into the cars Angie pointed them to and locked the doors.”
The cars then whisked them off to Angelina’s Hollywood Hills mansion.
Brad climbed wordlessly into a separate car and set off alone.
Five days later Angie filed for divorce.
MUM’S THE WORD
The latest revelations are likely to have come as a blow to Angelina who, apart from a few measured words about the family’s crisis, has played her cards close to her chest.
In January she and Brad released a statement explaining they’d be sealing court documents during their divorce and custody proceedings to protect their kids.
“She won’t like all this detail,” an insider says.
By all accounts Angelina’s a formidable woman who likes to be in control. She’s maintained a dignified silence about the
divorce, careful not to badmouth Brad while caring for her children and performing her humanitarian duties.
Her estranged husband, on the other hand, is opening up big time.
TELL-ALL BRAD
The latest revelations about the plane trip came hot on the heels of the Allied star’s first exclusive tell-all interview and “fashotainment” shoot with GQ magazine – which feature him on three different covers.
In a rather bizarrely conceptualised Brad Pitt In America’s National Parks feature, he looks drawn, grey and thin – and in one of the posed shots, his eyes seem to glisten with tears.
It was all his fault his wife left him, he essentially told writer Michael Paterniti while serving him matcha green tea in his Hollywood Hills home.
Paterniti describes a rather tragic scene: a blue inflatable dragon drifting forlornly in the pool, and kids’ bikes lined up in the rack outside. The home is beautifully decorated but empty – except for snoring, farting bulldog Jacques. At one stage Brad calls the dog, “Come here, boy. Friends for life!”
The one-time Hollywood poster dad revealed he’s so lonely he lights a fire in the fireplace every morning and every night. “It makes me feel life. I just feel life in this house.”
The past six months of chaos have been a weird time, he says, but says his current state is self-inflicted.
“I do remember a few spots along the road where I’ve become absolutely tired of myself. And this is a big one.”
For the first time since college, he claims, he’s stopped drinking.
“I’m really, really happy to be done with all of that. I mean I stopped everything except boozing when I started my family. But even this last year, you know – things I wasn’t dealing with. I was boozing too much. It’s just become a problem.
“I could drink a Russian under the table with his own vodka. I was a professional. I was good. [But I] don’t want to live that way any more.”
He’s also seeing a therapist. “I love it, I love it. I went through two therapists to get to the right one.
“I’m personally very retarded when it comes to taking inventory of my emotions,” he adds.
“I’m much better at covering up. I grew up with a father-knows-best/war mentality – the father is all-powerful, super strong – instead of really knowing the man and his own self-doubt and struggles.
“And it’s hit me smack in the face with our divorce: I gotta be more. I gotta be more for them. I have to show them. And I haven’t been great at it.”
Brad’s newly self-actualised approach was confirmed by his friend to Us Weekly. “Today Brad sees the kids and talks to Angie as little or as much as she wants. He’s not making any demands. He’s just trying to do whatever he can to rebuild his relationship with Angie and his children.”
BUT THERE’S A BRAD BACKLASH
Not everyone’s buying into sober, therapy-evangelist Brad’s new image. Many believe the interview was a not-so-subtle attempt at garnering sympathy and the poor guy has come in for a hammering. “I’d like to ask his agent/manager/publicist/anyone remotely responsible for pastoral guidance: what the hell happened here?” Marina Hyde of The Guardian newspaper asks, going on to label the whole bonanza “ghastly”.
Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir is even less sympathetic. “You have to wonder why this, no doubt lavishly remunerated counsellor didn’t just say, listen you 53-year-old, multimillionaire, chronically pampered man-baby, why don’t you try growing up?
“And instead of feeling sorry for yourself, start taking responsibility for yourself?”
“I’m not unsympathetic to the breakdown of his marriage but this is all so terribly . . . teenage.”
“Isn’t it time pampered man-baby sad dad Brad just grew up?”
Ouch.