BY JAMES BEAL AND CAROLINE IGGULDEN 22nd February 2017
The actress insisted that Brad was still a 'wonderful' father
AMID the drama of their split, she was quick to define their roles.
He was a drug-smoking, child-beating drunk — under investigation by the FBI — and she was the humanitarian domestic goddess who fled the marriage “for the health of the family”.
But now, just five months later, Angelina Jolie is praising Brad Pitt as a “wonderful” father while she drags their six children to Cambodia and feeds them fried spiders as she promotes her latest worthy movie.
On the other hand, Brad got a spontaneous standing ovation from Hollywood’s elite at last month’s Golden Globes and his latest film as producer, Moonlight, has won critical acclaim and eight Oscar nominations.
Last night insiders told The Sun that in the marriage fallout, Angelina may have won the kids but Brad has kept Hollywood.
One source said: “She’s so disliked in LA now it will be a miracle if she is able to salvage any friendships.
“Angelina has always been a guy’s girl. She has always been brutal when it came to Brad’s female co-stars — but that’s nothing compared to his buddies’ girlfriends.
“She was horrifically rude to George Clooney’s girls, particularly Stacy Keibler, and she totally snubbed Amal when she came to hear her speak in the UK.
“Brad hides this well but he’s an accomplished Hollywood networker. He’s taken a load of contacts and friends with him.
“She’ll have to turn to China for money for another big movie because Brad is such a prominent producer now, with key relationships with all the big financiers.
“Nobody will want to look like they’re disloyal to him by under- writing a movie she directs.”
She’s on Hollywood’s outside looking in
Writer Andrew Morton, who penned an unauthorised biography of Angelina in 2010, added: “She is a very polarising figure.
“This is exactly the same modus operandi as her 2003 divorce from Billy Bob Thornton. She accused him of having affairs on the road and being a bad father.
“Angelina has never really been in Hollywood. She has always been on the outside looking in. Her UN work has taken precedence and her film work has funded that.
“I’m not surprised Hollywood has backed Brad. They realise it takes two to tango.”
Angelina, 41 — nicknamed The Groom Raider by pals of Brad’s ex-wife Jennifer Aniston — filed for divorce from him in September, shortly after accusing him of a drunken incident on a private jet.
Brad, 53, was apparently blindsided, particularly as she had previously raved about him as a superb dad.
He hid away at home in LA as the FBI and social services investigated claims he had been “verbally abusive” and “physical” with 15-year-old son Maddox aboard the flight from France to the US.
Angelina filed for divorce just five days later and sought sole custody of their children.
Allegations of his pot smoking, drinking and temper tantrums followed fast after she hired attack-dog lawyer Laura Wasser.
She declared that Angelina’s decision to call quits on their 12-year relationship — and two-year marriage — was “for the health of the family” and Brad was allowed only limited, supervised visits with the children.
It seemed his reputation had been well and truly trashed.
Yet by November he was in the clear. Both the FBI and social services found there had been no evidence of wrongdoing.
Angelina has since put out feelers for a public relations expert to boost her image — but none of the major LA players wants to get involved.
Insiders agree that Brad’s status as a Hollywood favourite was simply too tough to shatter, with the heart-throb signing a £48million deal with Netflix for forthcoming film War Machine.
One said: “It’s been pretty obvious what the industry has thought of her for a while. In the 2014 email hacking, when conversations between a studio head and a super-producer were leaked, she was described as a ‘minimally talented spoiled brat’ with a ‘rampaging ego’.”
In May, Angelina will begin filming Maleficent 2 in London, and while normally she would not see money until after completion, production company Disney has reportedly given her an advance to keep her afloat.
The source added: “It’s very uncomfortable for her to have to borrow money like this but she has no choice. Her life is very expensive.”
Despite her help from Disney, Hollywood’s loyalties were made clear by Brad’s standing ovation at the Globes — as well as the Best Drama Motion Picture award for Moonlight.
And while he is picking out his outfit for Sunday’s Oscars, Angelina is in Cambodia, drumming up publicity for her film about the country’s Khmer Rouge genocide in the 1970s, First They Killed My Father.
A film source told us: “People at Plan B (Brad’s production company) have been enjoying the irony that she’s previously gone out of her way to avoid using her family to sell film tickets.
"But for this one she’s shown no such reluctance.”
Earlier this week, sitting barefoot and cross-legged in a forest clearing opposite BBC reporter Yalda Hakim, Angelina said her dream was to educate the Cambodian people on the horror.
It is not known how many of them have the Netflix subscription they would need to see it.
In another photocall she was pictured eating fried tarantulas with her kids in the jungle, like a scene from I’m A Celebrity.
She told one interviewer that Maddox, the couple’s Cambodian-born eldest son, who Angelina adopted at seven months, was the driving force behind the film, reading the script and helping with notes.
Angelina adopted at seven months, was the driving force behind the film, reading the script and helping with notes.
The children are used to eating scorpions
At 15, Maddox does not attend school and his cinematic experience so far is playing extras in films made by his parents.
Backers of Angelina’s latest film, having seen her last one By The Sea make just £427,000 at the box office in 2015 on a budget of £8million, are said to be keen that she pulls out all the stops for this one.
Luckily, a really headline-grabbing topic emerged in her BBC chat — her separation from Brad.
Lips quivering, she took a huge breath, waited a full 11 seconds and said: “I don’t want to say very much about that, except that it was a very difficult time. And we are a family. And we will always be a family.
“My focus is my children — our children. We are and for ever will be a family so that is how I’m coping, to make sure this somehow makes us stronger and closer.”
In a second interview, screened yesterday by American channel ABC, Angelina, dressed in black, again choked up and this time paused for nine seconds before insisting that Brad was still a “wonderful” father.
“Of course” he was a good role model for their children, she added.
The interview then lost its sombre tone when she was forced to defend feeding her kids on jungle critters.
The woman who just a few months ago had won custody of her children because their father was so appalling, joked uncomfortably: “They’re used to eating scorpions, especially Shiloh. Shiloh loves a tarantula, loves a bug.
“They can eat a bag of crickets like a bag of chips. They’re used to it.
"I’m learning to cook them better, a little more flair, a little more seasoning.”
How Brad must have laughed.
not mine.credit and source: THE SUN
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