Brangelina (30 page)

Indeed, individually and together, Pitt and Jolie appeared to be everywhere lately, acting as professional do-gooders. Both the news section and the entertainment section of the newspaper seemed to report about their activities almost daily. One day she was testifying before a congressional committee, the next she was invited to sit in at the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations alongside such power hitters as Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Condoleezza Rice. She was giving millions of dollars of her own money to various causes and, with Neilson’s help, had set up a foundation with Pitt, who was busy with various humanitarian enterprises of his own, including a widely hailed effort to build houses in Katrina-devastated New Orleans. They were indeed helping to change the world, whatever their motivations.

Meanwhile, it appeared that Jolie’s humanitarian efforts had long since eclipsed her film career, which had suffered a bumpy road in the years since she had taken up with Pitt.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
, perhaps capitalizing on the publicity surrounding their off-screen romance, was a major hit, taking in almost $200 million at the box office. But her subsequent performance in
Alexander
—playing Colin Farrell’s mother even though he was only eleven months younger than her in real life— was savaged by critics and the film was a major box-office flop. Two other significant commercial disappointments followed:
The Good Shepherd
, starring Jolie and Robert DeNiro; and
A Mighty Heart
, in which Jolie played the role of Mariane Pearl, which had been originally designated for Jennifer Aniston.

“Is Angelina Jolie box office poison?” one newspaper wondered. It didn’t seem to matter. One flop after another didn’t seem to effect her earning power, as Jolie quickly became the top-paid actress in Hollywood, pulling in $15 million to $20 million a picture. Pitt earned even more. A clue to the couple’s ability to continue bringing in this kind of money came from a survey conducted by AC Nielsen in forty- two markets across the globe, which found that Jolie and Pitt were now the world’s “favorite celebrity endorsers.”

The power of what the philanthropy advisor described as the Brangelina “brand” was made even clearer by the survey’s finding that, while she and Pitt were number one as a couple, Jolie had actually been edged out by Jennifer Lopez as the favorite
individual
female endorser. It was becoming increasingly clear that as a couple, Pitt and Jolie were worth more than the sum of their parts.

In June, 2009,
Forbes
magazine named Jolie the most powerful celebrity on the planet, dethroning Oprah Winfrey, who had held the top spot for years. A
Forbes
editor explained that, although Oprah earns significantly more money, Jolie is by far the most famous woman on the planet. A Warner studio executive went further, saying that studios will pay a premium to have Jolie appear in their movies. “Other than her action films, where she’s the only woman in that genre who can draw, her films have been something of a box-office disappointment, fair to middling at best. She can’t necessarily open a film. But I think studios want to be associated with her because of the goodwill it brings. She now has that halo effect that helps immunize Hollywood from the usual shit they sling our way.”

It was Trevor Neilson’s job to build that brand and safeguard it from threats. For years, he did a masterful job, achieving the same impressive results as he had with Bill Gates. In June 2007, however, he may have crossed the line. That summer, as Jolie was readying a promotional blitz for her new film,
A Mighty Heart
, reporters wanting to interview the star were suddenly presented with a contract to sign. The contract started by stipulating that the interviewer will “not ask Ms. Jolie any questions about her personal relationships.” More troubling still was the contract’s third clause, which forbade the interview to be used “in a manner that is disparaging, demeaning or derogatory to Ms. Jolie.” A palpable shock rippled through the media community at the terms of the bullying document.

Fox Online columnist Roger Friedman labeled Jolie a “mighty hypocrite,” and a number of journalists threatened to boycott the film, prompting Jolie’s handlers to withdraw the contract and blame the “mix- up” on an “overzealous lawyer.” Few bought that explanation, though. It later emerged that Jolie’s people had also insisted that journalists sign a contract restricting the use of interviews from the promotional tour for
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
, although the terms of that contract were not nearly as restrictive.

What made the blatant attempt to muzzle the media all the more paradoxical was that
A Mighty Heart
is about the importance of press freedom, and the premiere was scheduled as a benefit for Reporters Without Borders, an organization that campaigns against press censorship.

The brouhaha over the contract provided a revealing glimpse into a behind-the-scenes apparatus, orchestrated by Neilson, that attempted to control or manipulate virtually everything of significance written about the couple. And while the pesky tabloid press couldn’t be so easily controlled, they could be kept at a distance.

When the couple announced that Jolie was pregnant with her first biological baby and was expecting to give birth in the spring of 2006, there was the same frenzy of media interest that accompanies most major celebrity births. But not every celebrity has the connections to bend a foreign government to their will. Jolie and Pitt announced she would give birth to their child in the southwest African nation of Namibia. The desire to get as far away from prying paparazzi was perhaps understandable. But when Namibia announced that it was refusing to grant foreign visas to foreign journalists without written permission from Pitt and Jolie, something more clearly was at play. Again, the tactic had the mark of Trevor Neilson all over it.

The image-controlling mastermind was at it again in the summer of 2008 when the couple was expecting twins, setting off a bidding war between celebrity magazines vying for the first photos. The money, they announced, would be donated to their foundation, which continued to do good work around the globe. Nobody could accuse them of exploiting their babies, knowing that the money was going to help end world hunger. But it was more than money that Neilson was looking for this time. According to the terms of the deal proposed by Jolie, the winning bidder was required to “offer coverage that would not reflect negatively on her or her family.”

People
magazine won the bidding war, and the resulting photo spread was a fawning portfolio. Notably, the hated term
Brangelina
appeared nowhere in the captions or accompanying article. At the same time, perhaps to deflect criticism, the magazine released a statement denying there were any terms placed on its coverage, and insisted that
People
magazine “does not determine editorial content based on the demands of outside parties.” Yet two years earlier,
People
had also negotiated with Trevor Neilson on the sale of photos of Maddox, just after the couple adopted him in Cambodia. In that negotiation, Jolie explicitly made coverage of her charity work part of the sale and
People
appears to have acquiesced, though it must be said the restrictions actually benefited a good cause. In a December 2006 memo sent by Neilson to editors who wished to bid on the Maddox photos, they found, “While Angelina and Brad understand the interest in their family, they also expect that the publications who purchase these photos will use them in a way that also draws attention to the needs of the Cambodian people.”

In November 2008, bristling at the continuing trickle of stories about how the couple were manipulating coverage of their activities, the
New York Times
ran an investigation headlined, “Angelina Jolie’s Carefully Orchestrated Image.” The paper describes a particularly revealing incident to illustrate how cleverly Jolie and her spin machine manipulate the public to enhance her image. According to the
Times
article, after Jolie divorced Billy Bob Thornton in 2003,
US Weekly
asked Jolie if she would agree to an interview and be photographed. According to two people involved, she declined, but then proceeded to offer the magazine a very different photo opportunity. Jolie informed the magazine what time and place she would be publicly playing with Maddox. “The resulting photo, the origin of which was not made public to
US
readers, presented Ms. Jolie in a new light: a young mother unsuccessfully trying to have a private moment with her son,” the
Times
revealed.

Echoing what many publicists have said about Jolie’s knack of changing the subject when she is under siege, America’s “paper of record” describes her modus operandi. “Shifting the focus is one of Ms. Jolie’s best maneuvers, magazine editors and publicity executives say. When she became romantically involved with Mr. Pitt, for instance, she faced a public relations crisis—being portrayed in the tabloid press as a predator who stole Mr. Pitt from his wife, Jennifer Aniston. This time, it was Ms. Jolie’s charity work that helped turn the story. Long interested in international humanitarian work, Ms. Jolie appeared in Pakistan, where she visited camps housing Afghan refugees, and even met with President Pervez Musharraf. Ms. Jolie and Mr. Pitt made a subsequent trip to Kashmir to bring attention to earthquake victims.”

The
New York Times
asked a respected publicist and media expert whether he believed the couple’s humanitarian efforts were an attempt to shape their image. “Presto, they come out looking like serious people who have transformed a silly press obsession into a sincere attempt to help the needy,” said Michael Levine, CEO of one of America’s leading entertainment P.R. firms, LCO-Levine Communications, which has represented Michael Jackson, Bill Clinton, and Cameron Diaz, among other powerful celebrities.

But Neilson labeled this kind of criticism as “cynical nonsense” and retorted, “People don’t realize the complexity of what Angie is doing. A lot of her charity work is done quietly and not in front of the media.” Former
US Weekly
editor Bonnie Fuller agrees, but with a caveat. “She’s scary smart,” Fuller said. “But smart only takes you so far. She also has an amazing knack, perhaps more than any other star, for knowing how to shape a public image.”

It’s the summer of 2008, and I’m crouched in the dense forest outside Chateau Miraval, a lavish seventeenth-century vineyard estate in France’s Provence region. Angelina Jolie has holed up here after having given birth to her twins, Vivienne Marcheline and Knox Leon, a week ago.

In the forest around me are some of the world’s leading paparazzi, all vying for the first photos of the new twins. The photos could fetch millions. I am accompanied by a French photographer, named Thierry, who has been scouting the grounds since long before Jolie gave birth. He points out which areas were public property and which were the grounds of the estate, though it is difficult to determine where the boundary was.

“Be careful,” Thierry warns. “The security that Monsieur Pitt and Mademoiselle Jolie have hired are like a tiny army. They will not be afraid of busting that camera over your head.” A few days later, two photographers would, in fact, be accosted by the couple’s security detail. A vicious brawl would ensue, during which one of the photographers would bite a guard hard enough to draw blood.

I cannot see any of the other paparazzi as I sit in the woods, peering at the magnificent grounds in the distance. As I sit waiting, I feel dirty, not because I am outside in the elements, but because there is something tawdry about lying in wait among what Jennifer Aniston calls the “ratsies” for the express purpose of invading someone’s privacy. It’s a reminder of what Pitt and Jolie, not to mention every other major celebrity, have to put up with on a daily basis.

I convince myself that my mission is a little different from that of these professional stalkers, even if not by much. For three years, there has been a constant stream of rumors about the state of the couple’s relationship, with nearly daily reports that the couple is separating or that their relationship is little more than a facade. One thing strikes me, though: if one tries to track down these rumors, most of them turn out to be false. The stories are either contradictory, the timelines don’t match, or they’re logistically impossible. Yet the public laps up the reports without questioning them, so intent are they on believing the most salacious details about the so-called perfect couple.

It was around this time that I came to the realization that virtually everything that has been written about the couple’s relationship is completely untrue. Worse still, it seems to have been almost entirely fabricated by the tabloids and by the less reputable entertainment weeklies preying on a gullible and gossip-hungry public.

I was also beginning to get the impression that, as saintly as Angelina Jolie’s media image had become, a sizeable percentage of the population hates her. This seems to consist of an equal measure of women who still sympathize with Jennifer Aniston and consider Jolie a despicable home-wrecker and those who just can’t stand the Saint Angelina image and aren’t buying it for a minute. Many suspect that they are being manipulated by her—with good reason, as I have shown—but seem to revel in this hatred and accept at face value any news that casts her in a negative light. They hover over tabloids and gossip sheets, searching desperately for that critical piece of damning evidence that would finally “expose her hypocrisy.”

Later in 2008, a New York City videographer who has worked with Michael Moore, among other documentary filmmakers, invited me to dinner to discuss an upcoming project. While we discussed things at his Chelsea apartment, I told him I was writing a book about Jolie and Pitt and mentioned how she was frequently compared to Princess Diana and Mother Teresa. At the mention of the late nun, he became quite animated and insisted that I watch a short documentary he had in his collection called
Hell’s Angel
, which was filmed by the iconoclastic British journalist, Christopher Hitchens. I thought I knew where this was headed.