Katie Couric was so upset by the news, she phoned the NBC news desk on Saturday.
“[I] said: ‘I know that we have this tsunami going on, and — and all these people, but is it true that they broke up?’ ” Couric related to her “Today” audience Monday.
Yeah, tsunami, shnunami — Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt called it quits, after all.
“Everybody I know, they were very upset this weekend about this particular breakup, because it sort of made you feel like, ‘Gosh, can any marriage last?’ ” Couric said. “And here they seemed really suited to each other. They were, you know, so attractive. They both seemed like very nice people.”
Yes, it’s the mystery consuming the nation — and the inspiration for both People and Us Weekly to take the unprecedented steps of pushing up their production schedules to rush out new issues.
Here you have two of the world’s most attractive, wealthy, beloved stars, people who spend months away from each other working in jobs that may involve making out with Angelina Jolie or Clive Owen, people who can’t go for a walk without flashbulbs exploding in their faces, people whose attitudes toward having babies or reconciling their careers and personal lives have become water-cooler talk — how could that not work?
Well, we’re certain to find out because the celebrity magazines, tabloids, TV gabfests and Web sites are on the case.
“We’ll definitely be covering this for a while,” Us editor in chief Janice Min said. “The readers, because they were so fascinated with them, will want to have the breakup explained to them and the ramifications of the breakup.”
After all, Aniston and Pitt were “our readers’ favorite couple” (said Min), the “golden couple of Hollywood” (said People deputy managing editor Larry Hackett) and the celebrities with the “ideal marriage” (said a just-released America Online/Modern Bride Magazine survey. Runners-up: Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey).
Brad and Jen were no Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, whose relationship inspired just a teensy bit of cynicism. “They really seemed to feed off the oxygen of celebrity,” Hackett said of the Ex-Couple Formerly Known as Bennifer. “With [Pitt and Aniston] that wasn’t the case. When they were on the red carpet, they looked great, but they didn’t need attention. And Americans like that.”
So now they’re getting more attention than any couple enduring a painful breakup could ever want.
The couple announced the split in a statement released to People last Friday. “For those who follow these sorts of things, we would like to explain that our separation is not the result of any of the speculation reported by the tabloid media,” the statement read, concluding, “We ask in advance for your kindness and sensitivity in the coming months.”
Naturally, People used the statement as the intro to a 12-page spread, hyped on the cover as “Why They Split.” The article, which credits 15 writers/reporters and is accompanied by 39 photos, gets into the baby question, “Signs of Trouble” (a collection of not-so-gushy quotes), the couple’s recently completed Caribbean vacation and a sidebar called “The Angelina Factor,” speculating on whether Pitt fooled around with Jolie on the set of the upcoming thriller “Mr. And Mrs. Smith.”
20-page package
Having been scooped on the breakup announcement, Us rallied back with a 20-page, photo-heavy package (cover line: “Why Brad Said Goodbye”) crediting 32 writers and reporters and featuring 35 pictures. The spread offers minute-by-minute snapshots of the Caribbean trip (“5:05 p.m. Jan. 6, 2005: Pitt initiated the kisses with a visibly upset Aniston, a witness says. . . . 5:10 p.m.: When they got to the beach in front of their villa, Aniston stopped to look at some shells in the sand, and Pitt stopped whenever she did. . . . “)
It also includes a “Why They Split” story (“Reason #1: Kids”) and, yes, a sidebar called “The Angelina Factor.”
People and Us normally would have hit the newsstands toward the end of the week, but thanks to the staffs’ around-the-clock work over the weekend, both were available in New York and Los Angeles on Monday (though by Wednesday morning, only the new People had arrived in Chicago).
The similarly celebrity-driven Star, which did not rush out a new issue, was stuck with this week’s embarrassing cover story “Brad & Jen Back On! IT’S BABY TIME!”
Hackett said the acceleration of People’s production schedule reflected the increasingly cutthroat world of celebrity media. “This story broke on Friday, and in a normal week we wouldn’t be out [with a new issue] till next Friday, which is something we couldn’t tolerate,” the deputy managing editor said.
Min said competition also drove Us’ move to print early for the first time ever. “We had to produce something that was exclusive, produce better reporting, produce a more comprehensive package. It will probably go down as the story of the year.” (She said this on Jan. 12.)
Kent Brownridge, general manager of Us Weekly parent company Wenner Media, even told the New York Post: “For a celebrity weekly, this is our tsunami.”
Min had the good sense not to embrace that metaphor. “Us has always served as escape to the reader, and I hope no one is confusing the magnitude of the two issues,” she said.
Celebrity obsession
The explosion of Brad-Jen coverage raises the usual questions about our collective obsession with celebrity and whether the stars have opened the doors to such scrutiny by offering revealing interviews and posing on so many red carpets.
“Celebrities in many ways are mercenaries we pay to take away their privacy,” said Robert J. Thompson, Syracuse University media and popular culture professor. “Any celebrity that gets into the business of being a celebrity has nothing to complain about because they’ve got a century of history that tells them this is the price they have to pay.”
Nevertheless, prying into someone else’s breakup is unseemly, no? Relationships are complex, intimate organisms that no one understands aside from the participants — and even that’s an iffy proposition.
Yet magazines and, by proxy, consumers feel empowered to ask questions of celebrities that they’d never ask their own friends or neighbors.
“I think it gets unseemly when it gets enormously speculative,” Hackett said. “The speculative thing would be to make declarative statements like `He left or she left because of X.'”
The People report, in contrast, has unnamed friends doing the speculation. “We report about this sort of stuff the way other people report about Washington,” Hackett said. “You report it with people they know, people they’re friendly with, who know their state of mind, and you go with that.”
Min was similarly unapologetic.
“These are big celebrities who have had a longstanding relationship with the public,” she said. “Our magazine is here to serve the readers’ interests and offer whatever insight we can into why this marriage dissolved.”
Since regular folks experience celebrities’ lives vicariously, such a story, all agreed, can help them process their own feelings about juggling marriage, career, babymaking, etc.
“Our story, I think, reflects the enormous complications married couples go through,” Hackett said.
Just remember that the next time your husband goes off for a few months with Angelina Jolie.
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Breaking (up) news
When word came, Us Weekly and People went into Brad-Jen overdrive, moving up production of its next issues. Here’s how their coverage compares:
PEOPLE
Pages devoted to story – 12
Number of photos — 39
“Angelina Factor” story? — Yes
Juiciest bit — “Says another source: ‘Jennifer knew that Angelina got under his skin, and it bothered her.’ “
Good question raised – What will happen to their production companies?
US
Pages devoted to story – 20
Number of photos – 35
“Angelina Factor” story? – Yes
Juiciest bit – “5:10 p.m. Jan. 5, 2005 (on Caribbean island beach): Aniston stopped to look at some shells in the sand and Pitt stopped whenever she did. `He was totally into her,’ said the eyewitness.”
Good question raised — Why did they go on vacation pre-split?
