Update kinda sorta
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Angelina Jolie, master media manipulator, is back.
A quick recap: After Jolie suddenly filed for divorce from Brad Pitt last September, leaks hit TMZ nearly every five minutes, and they seemed to come from one side only. Pitt was a heavy drinker. He cheated on Jolie with a co-star and — one of the weirdest details ever — Russian hookers. He used hard drugs. He had rage issues. He’d abused one of their six children on a private plane. While refueling in the Midwest, an out-of-control Pitt hijacked a fuel truck.
These details were epic, fantastical, and largely disbelieved. In fact, the leaks only bolstered Pitt’s standing in Hollywood, and in his first public appearance since the split, Pitt received a standing ovation at January’s Golden Globes. “Moonlight,” a film he produced, won Best Picture at this year’s Oscars.
In May, he sat for a confessional cover story with GQ Style, and as these things go, it was tonally smart: Pitt came off as humbled and apologetic. He admitted he had a drinking problem. He spoke of wanting to be a better father and a better man. The only real misstep was a goofy accompanying video in which Pitt, dressed in $700 shirts, rolled around in sand dunes and cried at a campfire.
Now it’s Jolie’s turn, and she’s chosen Vanity Fair’s prestigious September Style issue for her rebranding. “This is a proper icon claiming her place in the firmament of Hollywood,” said VF’s Jessica Diehl.
Actually, the spread is more in line with super-producer Scott Rudin’s assessment of Jolie as “camp event.”
As an actress, it’s been years since she was top choice for Oscar bait. Jolie’s tried to establish herself as a director since 2011, yet each successive film — “In the Land of Milk and Honey,” “Unbroken,” “By the Sea” — has flopped harder than the last. In VF, she’s ostensibly promoting her next project, a Netflix drama about the Cambodian genocide, but what she’s really trying to sell is Angelina 4.0.
The first Angie was a bisexual, heroin-using wild child who wore blood vials. The second was an adoptive single mother-turned-humanitarian. The third was one-half of Brangelina, globetrotting parents of six and Hollywood’s last great glamour couple.
Angelina 4.0 is now a harried single mom, fresh off a divorce, finally installed in a new home after nine months of living out of suitcases in a rental. So grim. Almost as grim as Pitt’s claim that, post-split, he spent almost two months sleeping on a friend’s floor, as multimillionaire A-listers are wont to do.