'Brangelina' Tell All Doesn't Reveal Much

by KnowYourRights Thu Dec 03, 2009 7:05 am

USA Today -

'Brangelina' tell-all doesn't reveal much

Tell-alls usually have one thing in common: They tell all. Not so with Ian Halperin's book, Brangelina: The Untold Story of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Halperin wrote last summer's Unmasked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson and co-wrote 2005's Love & Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain. Brangelina hit bookstores Tuesday, yet beyond the title, Brad and Angie don't spend much time together in Halperin's account of their relentlessly documented life as partners and parents. The book's actual focus is Jolie; rehashing her childhood and wild-child days and painting her as a "charlatan who has deceived the public by building a myth based on her good works."
Here's a breakdown of some the high — and low — points in the book:

•Little discussion of the Jolie-Pitt home life. Don't expect tales of tantrums and nannies running the show. In fact, the names of the couple's six children are mentioned only about a dozen times, and only in the last 60 pages of the book. Halperin touches on Maddox and Zahara's adoptions, but mentions Shiloh, Pax and twins Vivienne and Knox only in passing. Even Pitt fails to make any sort of substantial appearance until Chapter 4.

•Marginalization and oversimplification of Pitt. Of the book's 19 chapters, only six mention or focus on Pitt, who is portrayed as a passive victim caught in the web of Jolie's media-manipulating magic and moxie. "Brad Pitt, the wholesome Midwesterner who charmed Hollywood ... is by all accounts, a very nice guy. ... Likes his pals, dotes on his children," Halperin writes. "Pitt seems to take things in stride, but Jolie seems driven, not just to achieve, but to convince the world that she can be everything to everyone. ... Mother, star, activist ... saint?"

•Sourcing questions. Halperin relies on a host of unnamed sources, including a person he describes as "somebody I used to work with on films" who attributes the actress' thin frame to alleged drug use. He also borrows extensively from a July 5, 2001, Rolling Stone article, Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic, for many of his anecdotes about Jolie's past.

Halperin also includes a lengthy quote from an unnamed crewmember from Pitt's 2004 movie Troy (which was filmed before he met Jolie). While the insider says the couple's rocky relationship has to do with Jolie's temper, the source does admit that she might not be the best person to ask about the Jolie-Pitts. "I've never met her, and I've never seen them spend any time together; maybe I'd get a better sense if I could," she says.

•Colorful undercover missions. In an effort to uncover Jolie's many alleged "deceptions," Halperin goes undercover several times. He pretends to be a potential patient still distraught over Kurt Cobain's suicide to access UCLA Medical Center's Neuropsychiatric Institute where Jolie stayed after having a nervous breakdown in 2000. He also hires a friend to pose as his amorous sister and visits a support group for siblings living as couples, in an effort to better understand the star's relationship with brother James Haven. And the author hides in the bushes with paparazzi outside the French estate Jolie and Pitt rented while awaiting the birth of twins Vivienne and Knox in summer 2008.

While crouched in the foliage outside the Jolie-Pitt compound, Halperin describes trying to rationalize being a "professional stalker" in the name of journalism. "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 ... for the express purpose of invading someone's privacy."

•Accusations of infidelity. Halperin accuses Jolie of maintaining a jungle hideaway in Cambodia where she used to meet former lover Jenny Shimizu for trysts. However, he also includes a quote from Shimizu, who seems to deny the claim. "This comes up every three years or so. Saying we're in Cambodia having an affair sells magazines," Halperin quotes Shimizu as saying. The author then brings up several "occasions" of Pitt getting cozy with an obscure Sudanese model, whom he allegedly met in 2007.

•Revealing theories. Although he indicts tabloids for their "never-ending stream of false stories, innuendo and gossip," Halperin doesn't do much better on that front. In an attempt to dismantle Jolie's "Saint Angelina" moniker, Halperin draws parallels between the actress and Mother Teresa, whom one of his sources characterizes as a "pious old (expletive)" who was more interested in flying private jets and hoarding money than helping others when she was alive. He also admits that he has had no access to the couple for his book, which includes theories about their photo-op child-rearing, addiction to working, aversion to marriage and inevitable split some time next year, which Halperin describes as "watching a fairy tale in reverse."

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