While the whole world is still reeling from the break-up of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, critics are convinced that it is a giant, manufactured "publicity stunt" by the couple. The popularity and interest that has been generated even by negative press draw much more attention than any other kind of news can at the moment.
Rumors regarding their split have shifted from their divorce to their parenting. There is no longer so much discussion about the "other woman" than about about parenting----good, bad and the person who will parent. The question that always pops up is: They may have jointly overseen the upbringing of six children, but who will do it now?
An "investigative" report by Ian Halperin, who released a book in 2009 called 'Brangelina: The Untold Story of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie', refers to the couple as a "sham" pair.
"I interviewed over 1000 people close to the couple," he told Sunrise. "The people I interviewed, even today, say this relationship was false from the get go. It was a complete sham." He said that their marriage was just "fabricated" in an attempt to "double their star power."
"They wanted to create a brand bigger than any couple we have seen in Hollywood, to generate millions and millions of dollars in revenue and to be the biggest thing on the cover of tabloids and glossy magazines every week," he said.
Halperin might be right. Would any Hollywood couple be free of a desire to be off the press tabloids, going by the publicity and the focus they receive? All of them strive to project that they are "ideal couples".
Why pick a bone only with Brangelina, then? It is clear that they are the hottest brand right now, and the media too is struggling to piggyback on their stardom. But the longing for just power seems rather strange for a couple that wants to build up an international relationship. Why create such a huge infrastructure for it?
The giant design that he says they have created with excruciating care seems too much hard work, if it is a "sham". The couple slogging through half the world to drop into refugee camps, attend conferences to split hairs and adopt three children merely to become the media's darling....is the work really worth it?
Another Buzzfeed commentator, Anne Helen Petersen, said that it was completely about a "game" of celebrity by Angelina. "She managed her image, access to the press, as well as the balance between her private and public lives, the couple also managed to project an ideal relationship."
"There was no confirmation of a relationship, no public displays of affection. At press junkets, interviewers signed agreements that they wouldn't ask questions about their personal lives," Petersen wrote. "The lack of public comment could have mired both Jolie and Pitt in the quagmire of bad press and bombing movies. But Pitt and Jolie were speaking constantly. They were just doing so semiotically."
Now what exactly does that mean? Public appearances, interviews and event management are anyway created by all stars in question. Why is that so wrong or laughable? If a celebrity couple does not keep an audience in mind, it would simply not have a clue about beginning to follow even the basic, fundamental rules.
Halperin and Petersen point out that the divorce is carefully planned, along with an "exit strategy" worked upon for months. But that looks like a plan that is too clumsy. "Their relationship has been soured. They rarely speak, they're rarely in public together. When they're under the same roof it's complete fireworks."
If the reports are true, then it does not validate why the pair dragged it through months of a burdensome slough. And if they did, then why is the divorce trigger - of Pitt becoming physical with Maddox - so awkward, flimsy and amateur? There is no sophisticated plan here.
Ultimately, Halperin blames Angelina Jolie, not her husband, for the divorce. "I know this couple better than anybody," he said. "It's Angie Jolie. She's a woman with an agenda, she wants to leave the United States, she wants to work in the UK, she wants to get in the House of Lords, she has a non-profit foundation there. She has her sets sight on England."
Halperin does not know the couple enough. He might make Angelina look like a publicity nut and gold digger, but he is not clear about the whys and wherefores of why she would want more publicity than she has so far. Even if she does set her sights on England, it does not answer why she has to rig up the entire elaborate, carefully designed props in order to lead to the split. She can go there without the hoopla, and leave with the 'humanitarian' image she has been charged with wanting to project.
Finally, there is a lot more to come. The entire divorce looks as if it is going to be the "biggest custody battle in the history of Hollywood," Halperin said, "worse than anything we've seen".
That is the point on which he has got it a bit nearer to the mark. There is a lot more muck and mire to come, and the strange intention of making the children go through it all in order to "protect" them does seem to be the result of a slightly unhinged mind.
Whose mind? Pitt's or Jolie's? That might get clearer in the months to come.
