Brad Pitt was not expected in Venice. They’re saying he made a surprise appearance in support of Andrew Dominik’s Blonde, starring Ana de Armas, in his role as one of the producers. Which, of course, makes him look real good – that he’s backing what might be another winner and a film with a female lead. This is yet another opportunity to cite how Angelica Jade Bastien described him: “Brad Pitt remains the most cunning with his star image”, specifically in reference to how he has aligned himself with women to advance his own public perception that overshadow some questionable decisions… like working with Harvey Weinstein, twice, after both Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie told him about being sexually assaulted by him. This was a source of conflict between him and Angelina when they were married. Brad is a producer on the upcoming film, She Said, which is about Jodie Kantor and Megan Twohey, the New York Times journalists who broke the Weinstein story.
Right, but who wants to talk about that when he put on a tuxedo and wore it with sneakers on the red carpet? Why would anyone talk about that when everyone is trying to get access to Brad for Babylon which is expected to contend for Oscar? That would be two projects that Brad potentially is involved in this award season because She Said has Oscar ambitions too and no one wants to jeopardise any possibility of being able to talk to him.
What people have been talking about this week is that detail coming out of Jann Wenner’s memoir. Jann Wenner founded Rolling Stone. He has all kinds of celebrity stories and the one getting most play from his book, Like a Rolling Stone (what an inspired title), is that it was indeed Angelina Jolie who tipped off the paps to photograph her, Brad, and a very young Maddox on the beach in Kenya in 2005 a few months after Brad and Jennifer Aniston announced their separation. This was the infamous shot that confirmed that Brange was real.
But, um, I’m not sure why this is news? Calling the paps on themselves has long been a move practised by celebrities. Like who, over the last 17 years, was out here thinking that the paps just happened to be hanging out on a beach in Kenya when two of the biggest movie stars in the world were secretly on holiday? Of course they set it up. And I say “they” because while Angelina may have been the one to make the call, there is no way she did it without his knowledge and signoff as this would have been part of their relationship rollout strategy. These two were and are both media savvy. So if there’s any takeaway from this at all, it’s not that that they called the paps on themselves, it's that he was part of it but, as usual, let her wear the dirty work.
