Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt should not have dragged their kids into toxic break-up – it’s bad parenting
BRANGELINA was a huge love story – Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were so desperate to be together that his marriage to Jennifer Aniston made way.
Brad and Angelina’s family of eight, with three adopted and three biological children, were so tightly knitted together they were barely seen apart.
When the Hollywood couple got married, Angelina’s dress was even covered in their kids’ artwork.
But fast forward to today and that family unit is shattered with such terrible claims of abuse that if they were jobless Bradley and Angie from Hull instead of Hollywood I’m sure we’d all be looking at them very differently.
This week, an Instagram post full of hatred towards Brad from his teenage son Pax made it clear that their children are paying the price for their fallout — and Brad and Angelina seem to have both failed in their duty to them as decent parents.
It all ripped apart for good in 2016 after 12 years.
In court papers, Angelina recalled an ugly incident on a flight from France to America with their kids.
Before they even boarded she says Brad was aggressive towards her and had a confrontation with one of their children.
On board, she claims there was more abuse, he drunkenly grabbed her by the head and shook her then choked one of their children and struck another when they tried to defend her.
He denies the claims.
The FBI investigated but no charges were brought.
His legal team said he would not accept responsibility for the things he hadn’t done but would for the things he had.
Afterwards he joined AA.
This week 19-year-old Pax’s post emerged having been uploaded on Father’s Day 2020 when he was 16.
He said Brad made his four youngest children “tremble in fear”, was “a world class a**hole” and “despicable”.
He added: “Happy Father’s Day, you f**ing awful human being!!!”
One of Brad’s closest friends fought back on his behalf, saying: “It’s frustrating to see Brad being painted as some kind of ‘bad person’ when it’s far from the truth.”
But I do think he and Angelina have been bad parents because they have allowed their children to become part of their marital dispute.
Gigantic mistakes
It is reported Brad only has a relationship with Pax’s three younger siblings.
We don’t know for sure what these children have seen or heard but, if their brother’s hurt is anything to go by, some of them are clearly bitter, angry and upset.
They have taken sides that should never, ever be there.
Rich or poor, famous or not, London or Los Angeles, all parents fall out, all fail, all make gigantic mistakes, all have rows, all have regrets.
We can’t change that but we can try to correct it.
We can try to control how our children are affected to prevent long- term damage, especially when some of those children are adopted and have already faced rejection once by their birth parents.
Hatred and divorce or separation can often go hand in hand.
Unhappy children don’t need to be part of that, but often they are.
I have seen it so many times among people I know where an angry, bitter parent has bad-mouthed their ex until the kids finally reject one and have nothing to do with them for fear of upsetting the other.
Protecting and loving children to make them secure is the principal job of any parent.
But despite all their wokeness, it is something Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie haven’t done.
I just hope their six children stick together and remain supportive, protective and caring towards each other in a way their parents haven’t.
Welcome to the hip squad, Ash
BRILLIANT. I finally have something in common with a proper, real-life celebrity.
When Ashley Jensen paraded on the red carpet at the Scottish Baftas in Glasgow with her new toyboy husband, Vera star Kenny Doughty, I was struck by her pose.
She, like me, does the hand-on-hip look when having her photo taken.
Trust me, it’s a winner for hiding bingo wings.
Leave out of gear
THE BBC says Top Gear will not return for the “foreseeable future” after Freddie Flintoff’s horrendous crash.
As a mum of a young boy who, despite my best efforts, is utterly obsessed with fast cars, I hope they do the decent thing and finally ditch it for good.
This is a show funded by licence payers like you and me, with overpaid men acting like boys, driving around in flash cars at breakneck speeds for the fun of it.
Why would you glorify such dangerous, erratic, mindless driving and encourage boy racers?
If the BBC had done the right thing and dumped it when Richard Hammond had his crash, poor Freddie would never have been so seriously injured.
Danny’s Strictly single after split
RUGBY star Danny Cipriani has been cosying up with Strictly pro Jowita Przystal, nine days after revealing his marriage split.
I think it’s more a case of a leopard never changing his spots than the curse of Strictly striking again.
Shame of lost shops
THIS week I was early for a meeting so I stopped at a bakery in north Manchester for an amazing sausage sandwich (goodbye, latest fad diet).
I got chatting to the friendly staff, who told me they were about to shut up shop for good.
Robinsons bakery in Failsworth has survived two World Wars and the pandemic.
But the cost of ingredients and a £70,000-a-year energy bill – because they bake all their cakes and bread on the premises – has meant they simply can’t continue.
It’s such a tragic shame that wonderful, family-run businesses like this, the ones we really want up and down our high streets, are closing because of spiralling costs.
Nigel’s nous
NIGEL Farage is playing the smart game.
By “secretly” saying he wants to do the I’m A Celebrity trials for the air time, knowing there’s a mic practically perched on his shoulder, he knows viewers will refuse to give him what he wants.
Bingo. That gives him more time to pose in his T-shirt with his number across his chest and get into rating-winning heated arguments.
And it means Nigel can laze in the bath and strip off for jungle showers.
Not a bad plan, and to be fair, not a bad bum.
Irritating phrases
WE all have phrases that irritate us.
According to a survey, the most annoying are “amazeballs”, followed by “holibobs” then “awesomeness”.
For me, and No25 on the list, is “my bad”.
When I hear men over the age of 35 saying it, I always have the urge to tell them to grow up.
It pays to use people
ARCHIE NORMAN, chairman of Marks & Spencer, says middle- class shoppers are being tempted to walk out without paying for items when self-checkout scanners fail to properly register everything in their baskets.
He said: “It’s too easy to say it’s a cost-of-living problem. Some of this shoplifting is gangs. Then you get the middle class.”
It’s such a big problem across supermarkets that Waitrose has trained its staff to spot people putting items through as cheaper alternatives.
Morrisons and Sainsbury’s have even got security gates after the self-scan tills where shoppers scan receipts in order to leave.
For some reason, M&S is now adding extra self-checkout tills to make its stores more efficient.
But as shoplifting is so out of control, surely it would be a lot better if they ditched the machines and used the cash to pay for human beings, who could actually spot thieves.