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When celebrities attack

By ROBERT FRIEDMAN
Published January 16, 2005

I'll always remember exactly where I was when I heard the news that Brad and Jennifer were splitting up.

The memories are still vivid and raw: I was lounging on the living room sofa when Pat O'Brien, the Walter Cronkite of celebrity gossip, broke in with the report . . .

Well, okay, I'm always on the living room sofa, so that's about the only place I hear anything.

But this was different.

In fact, Janice Min, editor in chief of Us Weekly, says the impending divorce of Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt is "the biggest story since Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck broke up."

Kent Brownridge, the Wenner Media executive who oversees Us Weekly and other publications, described the Brad-Jen breakup in even more apocalyptic terms: "For a celebrity weekly, this is our tsunami."

I guess Ashlee Simpson's getting booed during the Orange Bowl halftime show was Us Weekly's war in Iraq.

In any case, even a public jaded by war and disaster was unprepared us for the devastating news about Brad and Jen. Just as General Motors is supposed to be Too Big to Fail, Brad and Jen were supposed to be Too Beautiful to Break Up.

And we knew them so well. Min says they were "the most beloved people in Hollywood."

So how could they do this to us?

I blame the dissolute, Blue State Hollywood lifestyle. It creates too many temptations, even for seemingly perfect couples such as Brigitte Nielsen and Flavor Flav. As Stephen Stills, or maybe Donald Rumsfeld, once said: You love the one you're with, not the one you might wish to be with at some future time.

That would explain why it's apparently written into their contracts that co-stars have to sleep together on the sets of their movies. The romance that led to the first of Elizabeth Taylor's and Richard Burton's six marriages to each other began on the set of Cleopatra. And there's no better gig than being Gwyneth Paltrow's or Winona Ryder's leading man.

The gossip magazines are full of rumors that an affair between Pitt and Angelina Jolie on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith may have led to the Brad-Jen split. I find this hard to believe. What woman would settle for Brad Pitt after she's been with Billy Bob Thornton?

The only explanation for such odd pairings is that the first burst of infatuation can blind us to the flaws of our significant others.

This happens in other kinds of Hollywood relationships, too. For example, Walt Disney Co. chief executive Michael Eisner once thought that his best friend, Michael Ovitz, was the perfect choice for Disney president. But like couples in a bad divorce, they wound up in an ugly courtroom spat.

Ovitz lasted a little more than a year in the job - and walked away in 1996 with a $140-million buyout. Some Disney shareholders thought Ovitz's parting gift was a little pricey and sued to recoup at least some of the money.

Ovitz had a reputation as the scariest and most ruthless person in Hollywood. But Eisner testified in Delaware Chancery Court that he didn't come to realize until shortly after hiring Ovitz that he (Ovitz) "rubbed people the wrong way." The final straw, according to Eisner, came when Ovitz got in an ugly confrontation with a driver blocking the path of the hearse at Eisner's mother's funeral.

Besides, Eisner said, Ovitz "was a little elitist for the egalitarian cast" Eisner has assembled at Disney.

Disney has paid the egalitarian Eisner about $1-billion since he became CEO.

Despite his reputation as a tough guy, Ovitz was openly hurt after getting the boot from his supposed friend. "I relied on his word," Ovitz testified. "I relied on everything he said to me. . . . I trusted Michael Eisner totally."

But that's show biz. Yesterday's best friend is tomorrow's nemesis in Chancery Court. One day, you're breaking up with Jennifer Lopez or Jennifer Garner. The next day, you're "co-starring" with Jennifer Aniston or Jennifer Alba.

Things can change that quickly in the fast lane, and even the biggest stars risk getting hurt when they can't bring themselves to accept that their significant others have turned on them.

As Roy Horn said after he was attacked by one of his allegedly trained tigers: "Montecore understood the signals and wanted to save me. It was unfortunate that his teeth hit my carotid artery."

[Last modified January 16, 2005, 00:33:22]