The Golden Globes are here as the awards season season is well and truly underway, and there’s been one particular common feature in winner’s speeches: references to one Brad Pitt.
Pitt is undoubtedly a movie star, in the same vein as Tom Cruise, Christian Bale, Matt Damon, and many more. His image has been held up with sex symbol status, and he was married to Angelina Jolie in a very public marriage. But it’s not all this sexy actor image, as reports have emerged in the last year of Pitt’s alleged misconduct and abuse. Weirdly though, nobody seems to bring this up.
Stranger is how often Pitt came up in thank yous and special mentions during the Golden Globes, alongside seemingly endless close-ups of the actor during the ceremony.
Let’s be crystal clear here, there are very public allegations of Pitt abusing his children and ex-wife Jolie. This has all come out due to the ongoing debacle of their custody battle, with allegations including verbal and physical assault. Pitt had been at the center of an investigation from the FBI over child abuse, but was cleared – although Jolie is attempting to find out how.
Jolie has alleged Pitt Pitt “choked one of the children and struck another in the face”, as well as “grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her” before pouring alcohol on his wife and children. But yep, let’s let him continue on like nothing happened and get praised at every corner of the Golden Globes.
Is Pitt able to avoid the same scorn leveled at other men accused of similar things due to his looks? Is Pitt’s publicist just really good at maintaining positive relationships with media companies? How are more people not aware of what he’s accused of? If a less conventionally attractive star of equal levels of fame had been accused, would they get this type of glowing, suck-up like reception?
Pitt is a powerful producer in modern Hollywood, and is part of the ensemble cast of Babylon so perhaps his appearance isn’t shocking at an awards show. But being mentioned this often, without him being a producer on many of these projects, is just strange.