Brad Pitt Slams Marriage To Jennifer Aniston In Parade Magazine, Backtracks
September 16, 2011 by Hollywoodite
Brad Pitt has given a lengthy interview with Parade Magazine in which he addresses several things including his relationship with Angelina Jolie, his thoughts on religion, adoption, and gay marriage.
He offers some interesting thoughts and he clearly isn’t one-note or limited in the subjects about which he’s willing or able to talk. He was given challenging questions and not just the usual celebrity boilerplate questions that offer no depth. The more revealing quotes were actually everything except references to Jennifer Aniston and his marriage which began 11-years-ago and which ended six-years-ago.
On the 90s: “I spent the ‘90s trying to hide out, trying to duck the full celebrity cacophony. I started to get sick of myself sitting on a couch, holding a joint, hiding out. It started feeling pathetic. It became very clear to me that I was intent on trying to find a movie about an interesting life, but I wasn’t living an interesting life myself. I think that my marriage had something to do with it. Trying to pretend the marriage was something that it wasn’t.”
On changing his life: “I put much more emphasis on being a satisfied man. I’m satisfied with making true choices and finding the woman I love, Angie, and building a family that I love so much. A family is a risky venture, because the greater the love, the greater the loss. That’s the trade-off. But I’ll take it all.”
On Angelina Jolie: “One of the greatest, smartest things I ever did was give my kids Angie as their mom. She is such a great mom. Oh, man, I’m so happy to have her.”
On tabloid rumours: “I mean, how many stories have you read that aren’t true, stories about me and Angie being married or fighting or splitting up? And when we don’t split up, there’s a whole new round that we’ve made up and we’re back together again! We’ll get married when everyone can. We’re not splitting up. And we don’t have a seventh child yet… I don’t read about Angie or me in the press. I don’t see anything. I really don’t want to know. I don’t think the generation [of celebrities] preceding me had it as bad as I did. And I think the generation after me has it worse than that. I’m talking about the tabloid press. In the ’90s it really shook me up. I couldn’t believe that people would just make up stories. I would never think to do that. I mean, I went to journalism school. And there’s a code of ethics to journalism. It’s about being unbiased and not sensationalist and speculative. Now there’s a cult of speculation. ‘A close source says…’ The thing that really amazed me was when someone would describe why I did something, or what I was feeling. I used to go mental over it and try to fight it. But it was a futile battle, so I just gave up on it.”
On gay marital rights: “Can you believe that we’re still fighting for equality in America? To be against marriage for everyone is utter discrimination. I feel strongly about that because if equality of marriage doesn’t happen now, the next generation will have to deal with it. It is an amazing thing that New York has finally gotten same-sex marriage. But the real problem is that the federal government hides behind states on this issue. It is blatant, ugly bigotry, and the federal government shouldn’t be doing that. You’re denying some Americans the right that all Americans have, to live their lives as they choose. What are you so afraid of? That’s my question. Gay people getting married? What is so scary about that? It’s complicated. You grow up in a religion like that and you try to pray the gay away. I feel sadness for people like that. This is where people start short-circuiting; instead of being brave and questioning their beliefs, they are afraid and feel that they have to defend them.”
On religion: “I don’t mind a world with religion in it. There are some beautiful tenets within all religions. What I get hot about is when they start dictating how other people must live. People suffer because of it. They are spreading misery. My family is all devout Christians. We don’t see eye to eye on this one, yet at the end of the day we love each other, we’re still family.”
On adopting: “When Angie and I first met, we came together quite quickly and we decided we were adopting. Now the rules are that because we are not married, I can’t adopt. Angie adopts. We decided we were adopting a daughter. We were going to do it right out of the gate. We were not going to mess around. Angie said, ‘No shopping [for kids].’ I thought that was astute and beautifully put. It took the pressure off of adoption and brought a magic to it. We had set our parameters; we had room in our family if anyone needed a home. We got the call, and that’s our eldest daughter, Zahara. You get an attachment to people and places that you see. If you see suffering when you’re there, then you’ve made a connection to those people and you have to act on it. Once you have an understanding of it then you have to try to help. I say to people, go travel the world. Open your eyes. See it.” – via Parade Magazine.
The media read Pitt’s clumsy quotes about his marriage and being miserable in the 90s different to how he intended and so the actor has issued a statement. It reads like a clumsy retraction to the clumsy wording. He claims not to read the tabloids and so perhaps a publicist or someone tipped him off that this wasn’t making him look good; he can’t be the verbal aggressor, he can’t criticise. Aniston has done the same in shilling every movie in the last six years. Pitt doing so comes across less playful and reflective and more terse.
And he issued a statement today.
“It grieves me that this was interpreted this way. Jen is an incredibly giving, loving, and hilarious woman who remains my friend. It is an important relationship I value greatly. The point I was trying to make is not that Jen was dull, but that I was becoming dull to myself — and that, I am responsible for,” Pitt said in the statement.” – via Reuters.
PHOTO CREDIT – PARADE MAGAZINE
