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Either Brangelina doesn’t know what it’s doing or the media doesn’t. Brad’s family don’t want him with Angelina and this is putting stress on their relationship as it would on any relationship. But then another source in The Sun claims that they are doing fine – perhaps a little tired. Exhausted for sure. But according to the Daily Mail she says he’s boring and toxic and Brad says she needs to see a shrink.
What is fabulously interesting is the extent of their wealth. This from looking good and from the ability to memorise a few lines. They, says the Daily Mail, have a £205 million fortune, and several homes between them.
Who knows how much of this is true, but what we do know is that the media is indefinitely interested in this couple.
Happy? Hard to tell.
Or not. One never knows. I was convinced it was all perfect after hearing about their family holiday Cottar’s Safari in Kenya.
But according to The Times of London the two “have signed papers paving the way for a legal separation with joint custody of their six children, it was reported last night”.
Cottars Safari had to put up this gate to deter the paparazzi from gate crashing the Brangelina family holiday. The pole across the road worked a miracle while the family was visiting rural Kenya. Only one lone “bird-watcher” made his way into the camp. He was swiftly shown his way back along the dust road, and Brad and Angelina were left to enjoy the company of their children on their safari holiday. Read More…
I met with my family in Kenya as I’ve already told you. I had the good luck to stay at a distant cousin, Calvin Cottar’s lodge between the Serengeti and the Masai Mara National Park. Very beautiful. Loads of animals. And an interesting entry in their visitor’s book.
I found these scribblings of Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and their children in the visitor’s book. Sweet I thought. Read More…
Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.
I feel like I’ve neglected a child. I’ve left stagnant my blog without explanation or excuse for weeks now.
It’s been on my mind even though I’ve been completely out of touch, out of the loop and distracted. I’ve also been disconnected literally and figuratively until today.
I’ve had things to say but haven’t had an opportunity to say them.
But firstly an apology is in order. An apology to my blog and to those readers who care.
I wish I had gone online from Kenya to describe the beauty of what I saw when I met with my father’s family for a gathering there. We stayed in a tented camp between the Serengeti and Masai Mara National Park. The Cottar’s Safari is run by my relatives. It’s a beautiful part of the world. Isolated and remarkably restful. I felt and was on holiday.
On holiday a few weeks earlier there were Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and their children. I spotted their names and the delightful drawings by their children in the guest book. Apparently the couple spent a week playing with their children and spotting wildlife. Spotting wildlife is not difficult in this garden of Eden. It’s bountiful.
I will be writing more about Kenya and its conservation issues when I am back at work. For now I can say that I wish I had had more time in Nairobi and some time on the coast. I’ll go back I hope.
For the rest of the holiday I’ve been on our beautiful wild coast, and now we’re in the mountains of the eastern cape where we’re holidaying with friends for the New Year week.
A happy New Year to everybody. I hope that 2010 brings peace and happiness to us all.
It’s been almost a week since I checked into my blog. That’s a long time. I have lost my thread. This is not due to lack of interest. Rather, it’s due to lack of time. My holiday is almost upon me and I’ve had a million and one things to do at home, and at work.
But thank goodness for Beautiful Young Things which has kept me in the loop on a few vitally important things.
There is the Tiger affair and all its multiple tangles. Really Mr Woods. New baby and all. I am not sure which woman to feel sorry for? One of the 4 lovers or his wife. Read More…
Zahara with her mother, Angelina and sister, Shiloh (before the twins)
My colleague, Thato Mogotsi responded to my post about Angelina and her daughter Zahara’s hair:
In all honesty I think black women create far too much fuss about their hair than is ever necessary. And I tend to disagree with the common view that the only choices we do have when it comes to styling our hair is chemical treatment (or the hot comb as African-Americans refer to it) and hair extensions or weave imported from India. Black hair when well-maintained can be styled in all manner of exciting ways.
For most black girls, we learn everything we know about our hair from our mothers, aunts and older sisters. They help us define what works best for us; how to treat our roots, take care of breakage and keep the oily moisturisers from ruining our skin by sleeping with a headwrap on etc… But sometimes they don’t get it right. I know black parents who insist on putting harsh chemicals in their 2-year-old daughters hair in an effort to keep it straightened. Others will braid their young child’s hair with extensions so tight it often results in an early and severe case of alopecia. Its complicated and I’m not a mother.
But still I do not see the bruhaha over Zahara’s hair and Angelina’s approach to it. True there’s nothing ‘wash & go’ about African hair, as Allison Samuels puts it. But in the pics I’ve seen, Zahara’s hair looks like no more than soft, bouncy curls with a decent shine- not in the least bit neglected. I’d be more worried if she was made to wear dead straight hair because we’d all know that she was not born with it like that. And then what, Angelina would be accused of trying to make her look like a black version of Shiloh?
Zahara will grow up one day and whether or not her adoptive mother had anything to do it, she will come to that inevitable crossroad that every young black woman faces: straight or curly? Natural or Indian Yaki? The answer will ultimately and mostly depend on the kind of texture of your hair. And this can be defined by your genes, your lineage. Whatever works, despite general opinion or pressure.
Chris Rock’s “Good Hair” documentary is, I am sure, brilliant. When will it hit our shores? It looks fun, and very interesting. Did you know, I am sure you didn’t, that India’s biggest export is human hair?
And it might guide Angelina Jolie. Allison Samuels in the Newsweekt has a go at Jolie for not maintaining her daughter Zahara’s hair. Jolie, she says, hasn’t taken the time to learn or understand the long and painful history of African-American women and hair – this is not a world of wash-and-go. “If she had I can’t imagine she would continue to allow Zahara, her adopted daughter, to look like she has in the past few months. Photos of Zahara show the 4-year-old girl sporting hair that is wild and unstyled, uncombed and dry. Basically: a “hot mess,’’ ” says Samuels.
Having well-managed hair is not just about style, it’s about pride, dignity, and self-respect. Keeping your daughter’s hair neat is an unspoken rule of parental duties that everyone in the community recognizes and respects.
The couple have only once before been spotted in public with their latest offspring the twins Knox and Vivienne. But yesterday twitterer and ice-cream store owner Ihab Fakhouri, in Amman, Jordan, snapped them and tweeted this picture of the happy family.
How happy?
Brangelina have been in the Middle East for Angelina’s humanitarian work as goodwill ambassodor for the United Nations’ refugee agency, UNHCR.
See more pictures on this Hello story here.
Update: Hard to believe that this happy family is having problems as has been suggested by the Daily Mail – again. Brad has been visiting Jen – again.
This morning I watched Brad Pitt on the wonderful Real Time with Bill Maher show denying he smokes dope. It’s not good for his career. He is a family man. “I certainly had my day. Now it kind of turns me into a doughnut…I’m a dad now. You want to be alert, and my eyes used to glaze over when I [got high].” Remember him in that wonderful film,True Romance?
However…Quentin Tarantino also on the media circuit promoting Inglorious Basterds said on the Howard Stern show a few days after Pitt appeared on Real Time that when he’d gone to France to pitch Pitt the role in “Inglourious Basterds”, the two of them had had a fine time together. This gossip site tells it like this:
The two apparently got along famously, putting away five bottles of wine together while gabbing about the film. But Pitt doesn’t just know how to hold his liquor – he also knows how to relate well with fellow stoners. Tarantino revealed that the coolest thing Pitt ever did was take out a brick of hash, break off a piece, and give it to him. Proving that they were both old pros, Tarantino promptly asked for a pipe…but Brad Pitt gave him a soda can instead. Without missing a beat, Tarantino said, “Yeah, I know what to do with this.”
Is this a clever marketing strategy? Did the two men discuss this last week?
