Ep. 1 - Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie

**Katie Hayes** (0:00)
They are the world's most deadly assassins.

**Derek Kaufman** (0:08)
Their identities are a secret.

**Katie Hayes** (0:13)
Even from each other. So how's work?

**Derek Kaufman** (0:18)
We had a little trouble with the commission. So how's the land? Are you looking for a job or something?

**Katie Hayes** (0:23)
You are the job.
Had a few problems ourselves. Did you do something new? I added peas. Ah, peas.

**Derek Kaufman** (0:35)
On the evening of September 14th, 2016, a private jet lifted off from the south of France, carrying Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and their six children. They'd spent the summer in Europe, dividing time between movie sets, family trips and their sprawling estate in Provence, Chateau Miraval. To the outside world, they were untouchable. For more than a decade, Brad and Angelina had stood at the center of a global obsession. Two movie stars who seemed to have transcended the normal chaos of Hollywood life. They were beautiful, accomplished, impossibly glamorous, and in the eyes of millions, the perfect family. They'd built an empire together, six children from three continents, homes in Los Angeles, New Orleans and the French countryside. They'd co-starred in blockbusters, built a multi-million dollar wine business and turned their fame into global advocacy, visiting refugee camps, donating to humanitarian causes and reinventing what it meant to be a celebrity couple in the 21st century.
But inside that jet, somewhere high over the Atlantic, the image began to fracture. Witnesses would later describe a confrontation, raised voices, tears, alcohol and a scuffle that drew in one of the children. What had once seemed like a storybook life, was suddenly something much darker, something unrecognizable. When the plane touched down in Los Angeles, the incident didn't stay secret for long. Quiet inquiries turned into formal ones, and within days, both the FBI and Child Protective Services were involved, and the Hollywood rumor mill exploded. Brad Pitt was accused of losing control. He denied wrongdoing and was eventually cleared, but the damage, both personal and public, had already been done.
Five days later, on September 19th, Angelina Jolie filed for divorce. The court papers cited irreconcilable differences, and to the world, it was an ending. To those closest to them, it was a collapse that had been years in the making. The breakup sent shockwaves through Hollywood. Fans weren't just losing a favorite couple, they were watching the downfall of a modern myth. Brad and Angelina weren't ordinary movie stars. Together, they had become a symbol of beauty, of purpose, of global consciousness, wrapped in glamour. Their relationship had seemed to transcend gossip and celebrity culture itself.
They'd started as co-stars and become partners in every sense, raising six children, directing and producing films, expanding the vineyard and hosting summits on human rights. They'd managed to turn their marriage into a movement until suddenly it all fell apart. For the tabloids, the narrative wrote itself, a decade of romance undone by ego, addiction and the strain of fame. For those watching more closely, the story was something more complicated, a reminder that even the most carefully constructed fairy tale can't survive when the real world intrudes. It was hard not to wonder if this ending had been written from the beginning. Brad Pitt had met Angelina Jolie while still married to Jennifer Aniston, a betrayal that fueled a thousand magazine covers and set the tone for everything that followed. Their love story had always been larger than life, and now its ending would be too.
In a single week, Hollywood's Golden Couple became its greatest cautionary tale. The family they'd built so publicly disappeared behind locked gates, and the same press that once called them untouchable now chronicled their downfall in exhaustive detail. To understand how it came to this, how two people who once seemed inseparable could implode so completely, you have to go back, back to where it started, to the movie set where fiction and reality first began to blur, and to the spark that started the rise and eventually led to the demise of Brangelina.
I'm Derek Kaufman.

**Katie Hayes** (3:55)
I'm Katie Hayes.

**Derek Kaufman** (3:56)
And this is Splits, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
All right. Welcome to Splits is our first episode of a new podcast. Katie and I will be exploring all of the Hollywood breakups, all of the ins and outs, all the twists and turns of the biggest celebrity couples just falling apart.

**Katie Hayes** (4:18)
Yep. The biggest divorces of all time.

**Derek Kaufman** (4:21)
So, Brad and Angelina.

**Katie Hayes** (4:22)
Not to be confused with a gymnast podcast.

**Derek Kaufman** (4:23)
This is true. Katie did want to do a series of splits and some floor routines and things of that nature.