"Brangelina" Divorce: Why Is Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's Relationship So Fascinating?
So many times had the rumor spread that few believed the news as soon as it was released: how could the breakup of "Brangelina", the quintessential Hollywood couple, be true?
But yes, the actress's lawyer, Robert Offer, confirmed it on Tuesday: Angelina Jolie asked Brad Pitt for a divorce "for the health of her family."
Immediately after, both became a trend in social networks and, rebound, also the actress Jennifer Aniston, ex-wife of Brad Pitt.
Why does this couple attract us so much?
A beginning of cinema
Audiences have witnessed the love story between Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt from the beginning.
Each was already a celebrity before their paths crossed in the filming of the movie "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" (Mr. & Mrs. Smith) in 2004.
At the time, Pitt was still married to Aniston, who was experiencing the peak of her popularity with the final season of the Friends series that she starred in.
But the chemistry between Pitt and Jolie was evident and, although they both insist that nothing happened between them until Pitt divorced Aniston, the truth is that that movie marked the beginning of their love.
The morbidness of this love triangle, reinforced by the image of a destroyed Jennifer Aniston and an Angelina Jolie who was portrayed as a home breaker only increased interest.
Beautiful and young
The physical beauty of Jolie and Pitt could not but multiply when they joined and the media spared no effort in photographing them and spreading all the details about the new couple.
Since the rise of pop culture, audiences have always been fascinated by glamorous and powerful couples, The Washington Post columnist Amy Argetsinger explained at the time.
"Brad and Angelina are the current equivalent of Richard Burton and Liz Taylor, famous and sexy people who collect children and charitable activities instead of jewelry," wrote Argetsinger in the American newspaper.
"We think we know them from their on-screen characters, but of course we don't know them, and that fascination with what's below the surface fuels the appetite for more stories about them."
Successful and committed actors
But couples of handsome and famous there are many, especially in the world of Hollywood.
The case of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt took a different path because of how the two evolved in their attitudes both in life and in the cinema.
The highest-grossing films were left aside and dedicated to projects more aimed at raising awareness on sensitive issues such as war and social injustices.
Outside the cinema, after being a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for 10 years, she was appointed special envoy of the High Commissioner.
Jolie has not missed an opportunity to expose herself and get her message across to the general public.
The BBC Mundo correspondent in Los Angeles, Beatriz Díez, highlights in the actress above all the metamorphosis of who years before had stood out for her rebellious and provocative character.
At the 2000 Oscars in Los Angeles, for example, Jolie gave her brother a passionate kiss in front of an audience of millions and said she was wildly in love with him.
During her wedding to her first husband, British actor Jonny Lee Miller, Jolie wore a white shirt on which she wrote his name in blood.
In her second marriage, this time to American actor Billy Bob Thornton, it was astonishing that Jolie wore an amulet with his blood around her neck.
But despite her eccentricities, Jolie managed to captivate audiences.
"Jolie is fascinating because she is unique in her ability to act in action movies and also because we have followed her evolution from kissing her with her brother to being a 'home breaker' to becoming a mother humanitarian, "noted columnist Argetsinger.
In May 2013, the actress surprised once again by revealing in The New York Times that she had undergone a preventive double mastectomy (removal of all breast tissue) to avoid breast cancer, a disease from which the mother died. her.
Pitt is not lagging behind
Pitt has not been out of tune with this image of social commitment and has always supported the causes in which Jolie has been involved, as well as her decision to have surgery on her.
Before getting married, the actor was very clear when explaining why they did not say "yes" despite maintaining such a long-lasting relationship. It was out of solidarity with homosexual couples, who had no right to marry at that time.
The couple have six children, three of them adopted by Jolie in Cambodia, Ethiopia and Vietnam in successive years and three biological.
Pitt had no problem recognizing the adopted children, whom he treats as his biological children.
When Shiloh the couple's first biological daughter, she was 3 years old, she stopped responding to this name and said that he wanted to be called John.
Jolie and Pitt handled the situation in the most natural way possible, letting her dress and act however she wanted.
Thus, the couple that at first was born as a kind of Barbie and Ken stopped being so and became something more solid that won the admiration of a wider public than that of the gossip magazines.
The question remains whether, as with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, there will be room for future reconciliations.
