It's the end of an era: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are heading straight to Splitsville. After 12 years together and two years of marriage, Jolie has filed for divorce from her husband, according to TMZ, marking the end of the media's beloved Brangelina. The news has hit the pop culture community hard. This isn't the first time rumors of a Jolie-Pitt breakup have popped up, but it does seem to be the most legitimate. Ever since the two actors fell in love on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith in 2004, sparking an enormous scandal — Pitt was married to Jennifer Aniston at the time — the Hollywood power couple has been plagued with reports of scandalous breakups involving cheating, children, and everything in between. The seven breakup rumors about Pitt and Jolie below from the past aren't accurate, but perhaps they can tell us something about this tragic Brangelina news.
Every time stories of a Pitt and Jolie breakup hit the presses, fans find ourselves asking the same questions. What does this say about love in Hollywood? (Well, I guess love in Hollywood is dead.) Is Jennifer Aniston involved? (No, because she has a life separate from Pitt's.) What will happen to the children? This last question has been at the center of Tuesday's news, as according to the report, Jolie is asking for sole physical custody of their six children and joint legal custody. Moreover, TMZ claims that the split wasn't caused by any wandering eyes or third parties. Instead, the website reports that Jolie filed for divorce because of "the way Brad was parenting the children."
Here are seven other reasons the press has given for the (fake) Brangelina breakups over the years.
2009 — Brad Reportedly Smokes Too Much Pot
Ian Halperin released a book on Pitt and Jolie, titled Brangelina: The Untold Story of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, in 2009, and he had a lot of wild claims in the book. One of them was that Jolie hated the fact that Pitt reportedly smoked weed and liked to get high. Neither of them responded to the allegations, and the report was never confirmed.
2009 — Angelina Allegedly Plants Stories About Jennifer
Halperin's book also alleged that Jolie had planted stories in the press that Aniston didn't want kids in the hopes that it would make her seam more sympathetic to the public back when Brangelina first got together in 2005. "She was convinced that is the story that would resonate with all these women who saw her as a man-stealing b*tch," a source is quoted as claiming in the book. Pitt, according to the book, was allegedly furious, but in reality, neither he nor Jolie commented on the claim.
2009 — Brad & Jen Are Allegedly Back On
A string of reports in 2009 claimed that Pitt was reuniting with his ex-wife and that the two of them had met in a hotel room secretly to discuss his unhappiness with Jolie. According to a report from The Daily Mail, Aniston was allegedly unsympathetic, but rumors still swirled that she would eventually take him back. Neither Aniston nor Pitt commented publicly on the matter, and the report proved to be false.
2010 — The Prenup
News of the World reported in 2010 that Pitt and Jolie were having big enough problems to pay a visit to a divorce lawyer and sign a custody agreement that would allegedly allow Pitt to visit the kids, who would live with Jolie. The report, via Telegraph, claimed that the contract agreement wasn't necessarily active, but that it was "organized for a break-up and for it to be as unmessy as possible." Pitt and Jolie later sued the paper for their report. "When the News of the World failed to publicly retract the allegations and apologise for them – thereby leaving their readers in the dark as to the true position – the couple felt they had no alternative than to sue," said Keith Schilling, a lawyer for the duo. "Today's victory marks the end of the litigation brought by Brad and Angelina."
2012 — Angelina Reportedly Cheated
In 2012, Star (via Hollywood Life) reported that Jolie and Pitt were on the verge of a big breakup after Jolie allegedly confessed that she had been cheating on Pitt on and off over the course of their entire relationship. The reports were never confirmed, and Brangelina lived on to fight another day.
2016 — Angelina Was Reportedly Suffering From Anorexia
Yep, you read that right. A 2016 report from OK! magazine (via Hollywood Life) used a source who claimed that Jolie "barely eats" and that her alleged eating disorder was tearing them apart. Jolie never commented on the matter, and the claims haven't been proven to be true.
2016 — Brad Cheated
And in September, allegations appeared in the press that Pitt had carried on an affair with his Allied co-star Marion Cotillard, leading to the divorce filing. Neither Pitt nor Cotillard has commented on the claims.
(Update: Cotillard released a statement on Instagram denying the allegations of an affair with Pitt as well, and referencing her current partner, Guillaume Canet, as the love of her life: "I met the man of my life, father of our son and of the baby we are expecting. He is my love, my best friend, the only one that I need." Read the full statement here.)
Hopefully Pitt and Jolie can end their relationship the opposite way in which they started it — with as little press and speculation as possible.
