CHANGE OF HEART

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie Breakup Documentary ‘Canceled’ by NBC

Angling for a sit-down with either of the warring sides in the Jolie-Pitt divorce, sources say NBC pulled a documentary on the Brangelina split to avoid burning bridges.

The divorce battle between Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt is becoming increasingly bitter, with tabloid accusations that Pitt “lunged” at his son Maddox during a row with his wife, and that he is a “bad dad” with a fondness for alcohol and marijuana.

It has even been alleged that Jolie filed for divorce after Pitt reportedly “made contact” with Maddox during a fight on their private jet, and that booze and perhaps even pot were involved, according to TMZ. Pitt’s camp denies the weed allegations, saying he voluntarily submitted to a urine test early on in an investigation into the incident to disprove those claims.

The alleged altercation between the couple is said to have taken place aboard a private plane as the family flew from Nice, France, to Burbank, California, on Sept. 14.

“[Pitt] got drunk and was fighting with Angie,” an insider told Us Weekly of the incident. “Maddox stepped in to defend Angie and got in Brad’s face.”

But this divorce is still really only in the “phony war” stage. All these allegations and accusations aren’t so much the opening salvos as statements of intent; early bids for public sympathy (mostly on Jolie’s part), which happen to be illuminating the terms of engagement and the terrain (custody of the couple’s six kids) on which the conflict will be fought.

All the briefings and counter-briefings are unattributed and taking place off the record, but one network appears to be betting that, eventually, either Jolie or Pitt is going to sit down and tell all to the camera.

And the hope that either of the parties may choose to open their heart to NBC is what insiders are telling the New York Post’s Page Six is behind a decision by the network’s in-house production company, Peacock Productions, to abruptly abandon the making of a one-hour special on the breakup of Brangelina.

Network sources—in a counter-briefing worthy of the divorce battle itself—have insisted to Page Six that the show was actually being made by sister channel Lifetime and the cancellation has nothing at all to do with NBC.

However, a source told Page Six: “The special was canceled at the last minute—the show had already booked talking heads, hair and makeup, B-roll... Staffers were working to slam it all together… Now they’re all like, ‘F - - k! We just did all this work for nothing?’”

The source went on to reveal to the Post that the special was, “canceled at the last minute because NBC was terrified that if they upset Brad or Angie, they wouldn’t get a sit-down [with either].”

However, another source described as “close to the production” said the show was actually commissioned by Lifetime, and that it was “Lifetime’s vice president of nonfiction programming who pulled it.”

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Tom SykesEuropean Editor at Large

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