Last week it was giving Melissa Etheridge an extension on her take on the Brange divorce, this week Angelina Jolie’s getting into it with Perez Hilton who received a letter from lawyers representing Angelina over his coverage of World War Brange. He responded by making public his return letter to them in which he tells her legal team to f-ck off – click here to see the exchanges. It sounds like Angelina’s legal representatives were blanketing media outlets with cease and desists. And, while other recipients of the notice probably dealt with the situation behind the scenes, Perez has always been a clever self-promoter and decided to exploit the situation to his advantage. Good move on his part, sh-tty weak ass move on Angelina’s. That’s two in a row now – and it’s embarrassing, especially since we know her media game is so much better than this.
It kinda reminds me of what happened in 2007 when Angelina was promoting A Mighty Heart. You’ll recall, reporters at the premiere were asked to sign an agreement promising to only ask questions about the movie, to only use the footage from the premiere to promote the movie, and to not use the footage in a way that was “disparaging, demeaning, or derogatory to Ms Jolie”. At the time, journalists were outraged. It turns out, the lawyer who was behind the move was Robert Offer, who continues to represent her now and who was one of the people who released a statement on her behalf right after she filed for divorce. In response to the backlash, Angelina ended up attributing the misfire to him, explaining that he was simply “trying to protect me”. Back then the blunder didn’t really affect her. As the New York Times noted in this 2008 piece about her (then) excellent public relations skills, her likeability score (“Q”) continued to rise.
So she’s recovered from these kinds of mistakes before. Before though, she had other distractions to throw at the media to divert attention to something more positive. Right now, there are few diversion options. That said, an interesting post went up on Entertainment Tonight’s website a couple of days ago with three key pieces of information. Despite TMZ reporting that the FBI is about to close the investigation into whether or not Brad Pitt allegedly abused his son, ET insists that the case remains open and that the FBI has yet to interview the family. ET also claims that contrary to previous reports, Angelina’s brother, James Haven, is not the kids’ primary nanny. And finally, even though several outlets, including PEOPLE, reported last week that Brad spent time with his kids last week, ET is saying that that’s not true. So if there’s any show that might be positioning itself for ongoing Angelina exclusives and, perhaps, eventually an Angelina interview, that might be the one to keep an eye on.
