Isn’t it time pampered man-baby Sad Dad Brad just grew up?
HAnkIeS out, everyone, because here comes Hollywood’s latest tragic figure — Sad Dad Brad.
The estranged husband of Angelina Jolie and now semi-detached father to their six children has given his first divorce- era, post- therapy interview to GQ magazine.
While flicking through the glossy pages, poring over Sad Brad’s lachrymose declarations of remorse, I began to think: never mind his emotions because I just . . . I just don’t know if I can take much more of it myself. Sob.
You see, it’s not that Brad likes smoking pot and drinking too much that caused the end of his marriage. Well, actually it is — but apparently he only spliffs up and boozes on down because he grew up in Missouri where men were men, cowboys were cowboys and no one admitted to having feelings, even if they fell head-first off a bucking bronco or stubbed a toe on the front porch, no siree.
Clearly, this is what his new therapist has told him, along with the updates that he is an ‘emotional retard’ who is ‘running away from his feelings’; a man who ‘won the lottery’ but threw it all away; a fool who chased ‘hollow pursuits’ while self-medicating with ‘pacifiers’ — or cigarettes, as you and I call them.
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?
It has been six months since Angelina kicked him out and, of course, Sad Dad Brad has been using his time wisely.
FIRST, he has stopped drinking, which is excellent news. He has also visited three U.S. national parks, in which he posed for a lavish set of GQ photographs doing tumble tots, crying prettily and literally standing in a swamp because, like, he is standing in a metaphorical swamp of life, geddit?
He was also snapped in a complicated clingy pink silk outfit which made him look like a sad sausage that had escaped its casing.
In many ways, the dramatic developments of recent months — during which Angelina filed for divorce, with Pitt accused of drinking and smoking marijuana too much — don’t quite stack up. Can his behaviour really have come as such a shock?
Pitt’s first wife, Jennifer Aniston, claimed years ago that her then husband would lie on the sofa smoking pot all day. Ms Jolie revealed she had been planning the divorce for months — but hadn’t she noticed his bad habits in the decade they were together before all this happened?
One might think someone with Angelina’s demons would be a little more sympathetic. She has a history of severe substance abuse and was once diagnosed with a personality disorder of her own.
And after all their efforts to make and adopt their rainbow alliance of six children, one might hope these two demi-adults would try harder to be good parents and keep their complicated family unit intact. Apparently not.
Today, Sad Dad Brad is thinner, greyer, haunted-looking and says everything is his fault.
Like other Hollywood sad dads, including Ben Affleck (reportedly slept with the nanny) and Tobey Maguire (hangdog after splitting from his wife), the defence strategy seems to be to present himself as a sorry, repentant fool.
In the meantime, he has consoled himself by taking up sculpture — of course he has — and spends ‘up to 17 hours a day’ trying to find ‘a moment of bliss with the clay’ while listening to ballads. Prince George does much the same thing with Play-Doh.
Is it wrong to imagine that this artistic output consists of giant female statues wearing pointed black hats moulded by Brad’s own trembling hands? Perhaps the word WITCH sprayed on the studio wall in a really artistic way.
Has he started wearing a beret? It can only be a matter of time.
OH COME on. I am not unsympathetic to the breakdown of his marriage but this is all so terribly . . . teenage.
A twice-married father of six, sleeping on a friend’s floor — yeah, right — while amusing himself by growing interesting beards and distracting himself with a blizzard of new hobbies?
Sad Brad also says he gets solace from building a fire every morning and evening.
Most of us had grandparents who did exactly that every cold day of their lives, without getting all noble and lonesome prairie about it.
However, if you are a guy who hasn’t washed a teacup or picked up your own socks since you rose to fame in Thelma & Louise, well, then you might get to thinking this makes you some kind of homemaking hero.
You know, therapy really is a wonderful thing.
However, something corrosive has happened to the very concept of psychotherapy these days, elevating it to a position of sacred eminence which cannot ever be criticised.
Therapy is represented as a cure- all for everyone, be you a duchess with complicated feelings following the birth of your second child, a serial axe murderer hungry for victim number 17 or a Hollywood film star who has just been dumped.
Sad Dad Brad’s indulgent psychobabble makes him sound worse, not better. Like a man on the run from himself and his obligations and not someone who understands his dreary role in the painful failure of a marriage.
He can’t be ordinary! Yet he has admitted his faults and is seeking redemption, which makes him an all-American hero once more.
In the process, Sad Dad Brad has revealed a great deal about himself — but Hollywood privacy is only privacy when it is something stars like him want to hide. It does not apply when their reputations are at stake.
In the world of the Hollyweirds, he wants to show his pain for popular gain.
St Angelina, it’s over to you.